


Hold Your Violet Tiara High

by myrskytuuli



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gosalyn should just tell her girlfriend about the superhero stuff, M/M, Queer History, Scrooge is just trying to be bisexual while his biographers fight against him, evrybody in this fic is super queer, he could also be in the ace spectrum I guess, no really why are there so many footnotes, the true main character of this story are the footnotes, they are all teenagers help, unnecessary gay anxiety, webby is still socially awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-01-07 04:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12225747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrskytuuli/pseuds/myrskytuuli
Summary: There is a time-honored tradition were people firmly believe that their generation was the first one to invent sex, and nobody wants to be the person explaining to Scrooge McDuck what gay people are.This is a problem for Webby who just started dating Gosalyn and is freaking out on how to break the news to her uncle. (meanwhile Scrooge has been part of the queer community this whole time and somehow nobody noticed.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this fic, we will assume that Scrooge really is all 150 years old, and that he has a fountain of youth tucked in there somewhere in the manor. The fic will switch between modern day, and flashbacks to Scrooge’s youth. 
> 
> The name of the fic is a reference to a poem written by Sappho.

It could be said that it all starts when Webby and the triplets manage to convince Uncle Donald to take them with him to a Ducks N´ Roses concert, and where Webby manages to bumb into a girl of her age, with hair as red as fire, and who instantly grabs Webby’s hands, and pulls her into the crowd. “Dance with me!” She yells, and Webby complies, and then they are friends.

 

It could also start when They all find out that Gosalyn is actually a daughter of a friend of Launchpad, and that practically makes them all friends already, right? So, they end up keeping in touch quite a lot.

 

Or maybe, it starts in Gosalyn’s comfy living room, on a weekend that the children have all for themselves, Gosalyn’s father being both very progressive and more importantly absent. His progressiveness has allowed the children to spend the Saturday in the house all by themselves, Webby, Gosalyn’s friend Honker, and the triplets, without anyone exchanging knowing glances, and murmurs of “I didn’t think that boys and girls had slumber parties  _together at your age_.” The absence of adults is still the more crucial part that allows the five thirteen-year-olds to kick back and enjoy the house.

It happens when they are singing karaoke, all stuffed with candy and lemonade (They are good kids, and more importantly they don’t  _need_ to thrill-seek on weekends. They get plenty of excitement just living with their uncle.) Gosalyn is working on a truly unique interpretation of Madonna’s Vogue, and Webby realises that she is the most radiant and beautiful being in the entire world, and that all she wants to do is let her small and insecure hands settle on Gosalyn’s swaying hips and slowly sway with her.

_Oh no_. Webby thinks, and takes another sip from her green and sizzling soda _. How did I let this thing sneak up on me?_  She also thinks _. She probably doesn’t even think of me as anything more than a friend._

Then Gosalyn turns around, gives Webby a smile, and all thoughts flee from Webby’s head.

 

That’s where it starts, but for Webby’s eternal surprise, that is not where it all ends. Gosalyn is a social, confident, popular and smart. She is involved in things like after-school programs, is a fledgling political activist, (Saint. Canard is a crappy city, and maybe we would have less crime if someone did something to make it less crappy!) and has had no problems accepting her  _queer identity_. (Webby on the other hand finds the word  _queer identity_  intimidating, like it is too official, like after all her hard work she is still cut away from the normal teenagers, still doesn’t fit in.)

Gosalyn has not been raised in isolation for her formative years, and is good with people. She kicks ass at sports, and is in every way too good for Webby, expect that Gosalyn gets angry when Webby says this, and lists of all the qualities that Webby presumptively has, even if Webby doesn’t recognise herself in Gosalyn’s description of herself.

But it’s fine. They fit together in the way innocent teenagers do, and embrace dating with the enthusiasm of people experiencing their first love. They hold hands, and when they are feeling especially naughty, they snuggle together on Gosalyn’s sofa and exchange slow and hesitant kisses.

The triplets tell them that they are positively disgusting, and that being in the same room with them could give anyone cavities. Despite this, Huey has also quite probably already planned their wedding, even if he admits to nothing. (but it is good to be prepared. Just in case. Don’t look at my notebook!)

 

All in all, the panic settles in Webby only when she is walking towards her home, hand in hand with Gosalyn, who is visiting Duckburg, and then realises that she can’t invite her in.

Despite how many times she has been told to call the manor her home, that she belongs there, that she is part of the family now, she still knows that this is not her home. This is Scrooge’s home, and in the end, he has the power to sweep Webby and granny out if he is so inclined. Webby has never before even though that Scrooge would do anything like that, but the thought now slithers in, unwanted and poisonous.

She says goodbye to Gosalyn in the city, and walks the rest of the way to the manor alone. She can’t help it. She has heard of so many parents, who have talked so many times about how they would never forsake their children because of their sexuality, that it has been made painfully clear that there are many others who  _would_. And never be it for her to think of anything bad about Scrooge McDuck, but she doesn’t  _know_.

Webby is not part of the family, not really. And uncle Scrooge (the word uncle suddenly sounds hesitant even inside her own thoughts) is pretty old fashioned, in his own way. He was born during the Victorian era after all, and made his fortune on the times of  _good old_ America. When men were men, and women were presumably also somewhere, and when everything was simpler and cleaner. It is the part of the McDuck legend that everyone will agree to respect and slightly envy. The current McDuck is free for the paparazzi and tabloids to scavenge, but the Scrooge McDuck of the nineteenth century is untouchable.

Webby understands. Reading the exploits of the nineteenth century Scrooge has been her favourite past time for years, and while she lives with the modern-day Scrooge, she still sometimes has problems seeing the two as the same person.

 

As she shuffles into the kitchen, she feels weird. Like a new Webby, who has slithered inside the skin of the old one and is now an imposter in her own home.  

The newspaper that she had not read in the morning is still on the table, so she skims through it, noting that some brave armchair historian has once again decided to publish an unofficial biography of uncle Scrooge. It happened from time to time, and because there was no official one, they all rewrote uncle Scrooge’s past with a slightly different pen, while agreeing to keep the main framework the same. Glasgow-America-Klondike-Duckburg, and the rest of the world tucked here and there between.

Webby can already predict that uncle Scrooge will be irritated about the whole business, he has a notorious reputation on disapproving of books written about him.

He loves telling stories of his life, and hates it when somebody tells stories of his life  _to_  him. Webby kind of understands. Having someone look at you, and then telling you who you are, must be an irritating experience.  

But none of this helps Webby at all, who feels even more anxious. She decides to retreat to her room, instead of staying to hang around. She doesn’t trust herself with already irritated uncle Scrooge right now.

 

Dragging her feet upstairs, she sees the triplets in the living room, playing video games. Webby watches them, and for the first time in years, she feels like she is not part of the gang. It’s stupid, she knows. The boys know about her and Gosalyn, but now that the snake of insecurity has been left out of the bag, it is wreaking full time havoc in her mind.

“Hey guys!”

“Hey Webby! How was your date?”

“Yeah….about that.” She fiddles with her skirt.

Huey abandons his game immediately, and leans over the sofa. “Did something go wrong?! Are you breaking up!!?”

“No, I…Nothing like that. It’s just, have you talked to anyone. About me and Gosalyn, I mean.?”

“Um…No.” Dewey says, and also leans over the sofa, eyes curious. “Why?”

“Well, it’s just that…can you maybe not? I don’t think I want anyone to know.”

Even Louie has now abandoned the game, and is looking at Webby over the sofa. Together the three of them fix their identical stares at her.  

“Why not? Wouldn’t it be easier if everyone knew?”

“I mean…” Webby starts, and finds it difficult to put her feelings into words. “I just don’t want to make it into a such a big deal. I mean, she’s my first girlfriend, how long do you think it will last?” she laughs awkwardly, the words slightly painful, now that she thinks about the implications of them.

“I don’t know, you two fit pretty well together.” Dewey says hesitantly.

“Yeah, but… I’m thirteen, and…”

“You’ll be fourteen in a month.” Huey points out.

“Still. I just don’t want the adults to know that I’m dating anyone. Okay?”

Dating is something that grown-ups do, something that will fling her into new unfamiliar world, and that goes doubly for…for lesbians. lesbians, who are always beautiful, and adults, and a bit dangerous. Lesbians don’t fall asleep curled against Scrooge McDuck on the sofa, listening to his stories. Lesbians don’t play around with Launchpad, and they don’t get piggy-back rides from uncle Donald.

Webby doesn’t want to give all that up. Not yet. Not even for Gosalyn. She isn’t ready to shed her skin that completely. 

“Whatever you say.” Louie shrugs, and that seems to be the general consensus between the triplets in the end. Webby feels suddenly like she is not part of the nephew gang anymore, and feels again the seed of insecurity growing inside her. She excuses herself and escapes to her room.

 

_Glasgow, 1878_

“Hey Scrooge! Polished lots of fancy boots today?!” The caller was an eleven-year-old dog-girl with thick brown hair and clever blue eyes.

“Hey Fanny! You know it!” Answered the also currently eleven-year-old millionaire-to-be

The two grubby children settled to sit on the steps of the already closed pawn shop, shooing a great big rat to return back to its shadowy home underneath the house’s structures. Pests fighting for space in the setting sun.

The pawn shop was a popular spot for the two children to meet at the end of the day, as it represented the magical in-between place on the edges of both west- and east-ends of Glasgow. Sitting under the sign of the shop, you could easily see the beautiful church, and the beautiful houses that spread over west end, holding in them the beautiful people and their beautiful dreams. This close, you could also partake in the beautiful dreams, if maybe not anything else.

“So, how’s the business?” Fanny asked, leaning back and letting her feet settle on top of her overturned cart. During the summer days, she sold flowers on the streets, and on winter she changed her wares to matches. Ribbons she sold all through the year.

“Not bad.” Scrooge let his own short legs rest on his shoe shiners box. “I have been thinking of starting to sell firewood when winter comes. If I have money for a cart of course.” The cold wind picked up and made the young boy shiver underneath his sweater. He had been sweating heavily during the day, and now the exhaustion was starting to pick up after the fourteen-hour work day. “Not everybody cares about the state of their boots, but everybody wants to stay warm.” He added.

“That’ true.” Fanny agreed. She lifted her arm and the knitted shawl with it. It was the fanciest piece of clothing that she owned, and made her look less like a slum dweller and more like someone the customers would be willing to approach. Scrooge gladly scooted underneath the arm and the corner of the woollen shawl.

The two children watched in silence as the steady stream of carriages started their migration from west to eastwards, as they always did after sunset. A horde of bored lordlings, and other gentlemen of all ages, invaded the music halls, pubs, and other even seedier places, that were so easy to find on the east side of the city.

An open carriage full of young men, from the university, rumbled past the pawn shop steps, the carriage-floor full of wine bottles clinking with every turn of the wheels. With the hollering boys sat four much more ragged girls, laughing just as loudly, but much less authentically. Seeing Fanny and Scrooge, the petite brunette sitting on one of the boy’s laps graced them with a real smile and a quick wave.

Scrooge and Fanny waved back. [[i]](https://ankkaneito.tumblr.com/post/165860908544/hold-your-violet-tiara-high-15#_edn1)

“Maggie looks better.” Scrooge observed, remembering how sick his neighbour had been just last week. His mother had already been fearing for the worst, shaking her head and looking more resigned every time she went to take a bowl of soup to the ill girl, living in the much smaller apartment next door.

“She’s tougher than she looks.” Fanny said. “We all thought that it was going to be her death this time for sure.”

“papa says that it was probably something in the water. There has been something going around again in the neighbourhood.” Scrooge shuffled a little, letting his friend rest her head against his shoulder. Fanny lived close to his family, but not that close. Truth to be told, Scrooge’s family home was possibly luxurious compared to the hovel that Fanny and her sister and her sister’s Friend, (Friend capitalized.) lived in, and their water seemed to always be a bit unreliable. But Fanny was also tough, and you would never catch her complaining about anything.

“aye, I know, for us too. We try not to drink the water at all right now.” She shrugged, used to the problem. They all were used to most of the problems in east end.

“Speaking of.” Fanny hopped off the steps for a second and fished a bottle from the pouch nailed to the side of her cart. Hopping back, she settled back besides Scrooge. “Want some big sister’s home brewed?” She wrinkled her nose, sniffing from the neck of the bottle. “ugh. I miss water more and more every day.”

“Me too.” Scrooge agreed. “I bet west-end pipes never get polluted like ours do.” He accepted the bottle from Fanny and sipped at the beer inside.[[ii]](https://ankkaneito.tumblr.com/post/165860908544/hold-your-violet-tiara-high-15#_edn2) It was not the strong kind that Fanny’s sister sold to the factory workers from her window, but the milder kind that wouldn’t get you more than tipsy, even if you drank a barrel. The taste was familiar to Scrooge, whose family diligently bought the overpriced milk in instances of the water going more foul than usual, and then gave that milk to Hortensia, who was the youngest. Downy was not particularly happy about it, but she had to be realistic about what they could and couldn’t afford. Still, Scrooge’s mother kept a strict policy of no laudanum[[iii]](https://ankkaneito.tumblr.com/post/165860908544/hold-your-violet-tiara-high-15#_edn3), no mercury, and gin only if you had a bad cough. She fussed about her children like that.

“hmmh. What are you going to do when you are rich?” Fanny asked. This was a game they both loved play in these companionable moments watching the west-end carriages together. Using the word  _when_ , instead of  _if._  Pretending that moving from one social class to another was something which was not only easy and possible, but also acceptable. Like the entire society would not hate you, if you broke the greatest taboo of all, rejecting the class you were born into.

“I’m going to save our ancestral home.”

“Oh yes. I forgot.” Fanny laughed cheerfully. “You’re a little lord in disguise.”

“oh, shut it!” Scrooge shoved his friend. “I’m never gonna be like  _them!”_ A carriage again rolled past, carrying with it an older gentleman, who looked at the two children sitting on the steps, and then spat on their general direction. Fanny spat back, but the carriage had already rolled past them and disappeared from behind the corner.

“Honestly, you would think that they have nothing better to do than spit on the poor!” She hissed. “When I’m rich, I’m going to leave this city, and do so many interesting things, and  _not_  end up driving around the city just to show everyone how much  _better_ I am!” She sipped at her beer angrily.

“When I’m rich-“ Scrooge started, taking his number one dime from his pocket and rolling it on his fingers, “I’m going to tell everyone that it is  _better_ to work for your money than to  _inherit_ it. That it’s not the  _natural order_ , to stay in your place!”

“they’ll throw you to jail for that.” Fanny laughed.

“No, they won’t. I will be rich then. They never throw rich people to jail.”

They both laughed at that.

“Besides, I’m going to America. They say that things are different in there.”

“The priest says that all American’s are immoral. They let miners wear top-hats and-“ Here Fanny whispered “ _They marry outside their own class!”_

It sounded scandalous. It sounded impossible. It sounded  _wonderfully wicked_! Both children shared sly glances and laughed again, a conspiring laugh. For both of them, it was hard to imagine someone marrying outside their social-class. A year ago, there had been a scandal in the papers, when Lord. Dashwing’s daughter had gotten married to a gentleman, who had then turned out to be a son of an  _accountant_! The engagement had been called off, the girl had been sent to a nunnery to repent her sins, and the accountant’s son had disappeared of to Paris.

“Well, they don’t have lords, so of course they are a bit different. I think I would like that. If there were no lords and lordlings driving around without anything to do, expect to spit on us.”

“there will always be lordlings spitting at us.” Fanny sighed, eyes looking faraway into the distance.

An awkward silence descended, and Scrooge bumped his shoulder against his friends to break her away from her mood.

“Hey. At least you will never have to marry one, there are always some upsides to the natural order.”

A surprised laugh escaped Fanny, and Scrooge felt successful.

“aw´hell no! I think I’ll settle for Friendship with some level-headed girl, like sis, and concentrate on opening my own shop”[[iv]](https://ankkaneito.tumblr.com/post/165860908544/hold-your-violet-tiara-high-15#_edn4)

“I’ll visit your shop when I come back from America, pockets full of gold, then.” Scrooge smiled, and hopped from the steps, collecting his shoe-shining kit into his hands. “I’ll have to go, Ma is waiting for me.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow! And hey, that better be a promise McDuck!”

Two years later Scrooge McDuck was one of the eight people attending Fanny Glenn’s funeral. The newspapers wrote a sensationalist tale about the tragedy of the girl who used to sell flowers on the marketplace, who seduced a young gentleman from the university into wickedness. How the girl had a brief prompt of insanity as she tried to seek out the worst kind of doctors, offering dangerous herbal remedies popular amongst the lower-class girls, and who finally died, poisoned, as the story had been related to the press by the weeping sister of the deceased.

Fanny’s sister had actually told the press that there had been something in the water again, which had made Fanny fatally ill, and could the city-council please do something to the pipes.

It was a much more boring story, and couldn’t even be used to teach the readers about morality, so it was ignored.    

 

 art by: http://pennydriver.tumblr.com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i] During the 1800-century, prostitution in big cities reached never before, and never after, seen figures. In Glasgow alone, there were over 450 (accounted for) brothels in the middle of the nineteenth century. That is over twice more than there are Starbucks in New York today, and that is not even counting the army of girls who worked from their own homes, or on the streets. The point is, that a working-class boy who spent his days wandering the city streets, would have been running into sex-workers all the time.
> 
> [ii] The beer house act in 1830 allowed anyone to sell and brew beer freely, which exploded the beer market. The motive behind opening the beer business was the governments hope to steer the citizens away from harmful gin, and towards beer, which was seen to be a safe drink. Predictably, the price of beer was on all time low, if the quality was also debatable. Giving beer to children was also not such a taboo as it is today, and literature of the time describes boarding schools giving the children often a pint of beer to go with their bread.
> 
> [iii] Laudanum, a popular medicine found in almost every Victorian home, was made from opium mixed with either wine or water. It was used as aspirin is used today, and “mother’s friend” was a common way to refer to opium given to babies as a medicine.
> 
> [iv] Romantic feelings between two women were not seen as inherently wrong, it was the idea of sex that made the Victorians go into snits. But women were seen as entirely asexual creatures anyway, so the idea of two women in romantic relationship having sex would not even have crossed a gentleman’s mind. (Or, well, he wouldn’t have said it out loud.) But women did create strong “friendships” with each other, which included sending each other flowers, love letters, and even sometimes referring to each other as husband and wife. Did these romantic friends then have sex? Quite probably at least the working-class girls, who decided to live together and work, instead of marrying, might have dappled into a more sexual relationship, but nobody cared what working class girls were doing anyway.
> 
> For more info on victorian wlw, I really advise you to read this article:  
> https://theyorkhistorian.com/2017/07/06/friendships-lesbianism-and-identity-in-victorian-britain/


	2. Chapter 2

Webby has been mindlessly watching some period drama on her laptop, when she hears the familiar knock of a cane against her door. When uncle Scrooge knocks, he does not do it to ask for permission to enter, he does it warn the inhabitant inside that he is about to enter.

It presumably has something to do with how he owns 90% of the city. Maybe it screws your perception of personal space and boundaries when all space is your space. 

“Come in!” Webby calls, letting the older duck know that she has emotionally accepted the invasion.

Scrooge invades Webby’s room with rare hesitancy. He looks at webby searchingly, and Webby can’t help but to think that uncle Scrooge is trying look for the girl that isn’t anymore there.

“Well. What’s wrong then.” Uncle Scrooge states with the sensitivity of a bulldozer, and plops himself to sit on Webby’s chair. He steals a look at Webby’s laptop, which is still playing the drama. In the screen, a gentleman in a top hat is leading a pretty dame in a corset and a large hat around a sunny park. He stops to buy a white rose from a young peasant girl, with plumage as white and fluffy, as the flowers she is selling. The gentleman smiles, the girl does a delighted little curtsy, and the dame swoons as she is presented the bloom. 

Uncle Scrooge sneers very pointedly at the utter romanticism happening on Webby’s screen. Webby feels suddenly silly, and slams the laptop shut. She has never been interested in hearts, and flowers, and romantic comedies, and feels now guilty for indulging herself. Like every action that she has lately taken is pushing her away from the old Webby, the Webby that is adored and accepted by her family.

“Nothing’s wrong.” Webby lies.

Uncle Scrooge just looks at her, unimpressed. “You have been avoiding me. You have been avoiding Donald too. You have been avoiding even your own grandmother. And now that I think about it…Gosalyn hasn’t visited in a while either, so I guess that you are avoiding your Friend too.”

Webby feels guilty. She hasn’t even noticed that she has been avoiding people, she has simply been so lost in her own head.

“So, I repeat. What’s wrong?”

Webby stares out of the window, not knowing what to say. Apparently, neither does Scrooge, because after a minute, he gets up, and points at Webby with his cane, like he can’t stand the silence. “C’mon then. Let’s get you out of this room!” (But Webby knows that he can, he stood the silence for ten years, when all Webby wanted was to live, and sometimes she still feels that uncle Scrooge is selfish. Selfish for now living and loving them, when he didn’t when it was just him and Webby.)

Webby is saved by Gosalyn, like always. Her knight in denim jacket. The pink phone vibrates on the table, and Scrooge picks it up, looking at the caller’s name. He throws the phone to Webby, and gives her a pointed look.

“It’s Gosalyn. Now Webby lass, I want you to go out with her, and work out whatever it is that you are fighting about, _and stop sulking in your room_!”

Webby gulps, and picks up the phone. “Hey Gos! I’ve been ordered to go out with you.”

They arrange for a meeting in Duckburg, and Webby ends the call, feeling giddy and terrified at the same time. It is an exhausting mix of feelings.

Uncle Scrooge smiles at her, looking satisfied. “There’s a lass. No go talk it out.” He pulls a flower from a pocket of his red coat, a violet,[i] and tucks it into Webby’s hair, neatly securing the bloom with Webby’s usual ribbon. It is an unusual action from uncle Scrooge, and Webby isn’t quite sure how to take it.

“Now.” He says, a hand heavy on Webby’s shoulder. “Just be yourself, remember to be honest, and get yourself sorted out, sulking helps no one!”

“We are not fighting.” Webby protests weakly, but is ignored.

“Yes, yes lass. Now go.”

 

Gosalyn is waiting for her at the train station, red hair burning in the sun. She looks like a work of art.

“Well hello stranger! Do I have something on my face, or did you already forget what your girlfriend looked like?” She strode towards Webby, grinning happily.

“I forgot how pretty you are.” Webby answered in panicked bout of honesty.

Gosalyn made a little adorable eep noise and looked at everywhere but Webby. “Webby c’mon. You’re such a nerd,” she stammered, punching Webby’s arm.

“And you’re a dork.” Webby lightly punched her back, and just like that everything was well again in the world.  “Sorry I haven’t been in touch. I’ve been- It’s complicated.”

“Sure, yeah. Just maybe don’t keep me in a total radio silence the next time. I thought you’d been kidnapped by criminals or something for few days there.”

“Phhwwtt. Me, kidnapped. Never. Grammy’s taught me way too well for that to happen”. Webby slipped her arm into Gosalyn’s. “Besides, I think the criminals of Duckburg had something else to worry about last week, did you hear that Darkwing Duck was spotted in Duckburg day before yesterday?”

“Hahha. Really?? That’s….weird. A weird coincidence.”

“Yeah, kinda was. Anyways, what do you wanna do? I know a great ice-cream place just few blocks away. We’ve never been there before.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Few blocks go by fast when you are holding hands with your girlfriend and chatting about your week. All boring nonsense that with anybody else would soon get dull.

They reached the ice-cream place, and gorged themselves on triple chocolate delight, and Gosalyn showed her notebook to Webby, pages filled equally with monster doodles and of notes made, of all things, on poetry.

“-So anyway, at first I was of course like, bleh! Poetry. What is Ms. Sonnet even thinking! I’m not going to write an assignment on that! But then! But then I found a treasure trove!”

“This is a metaphorical treasure? Right.”

“Yeah, not all of us trip over hidden treasures every weekend, unlike certain someones.” She gave Webby a pointed look, a look that reminded Webby that she had promised that Gosalyn could come with them the next time Uncle Scrooge got that itch again.

“So, what did you find?” Webby urged Gosalyn to continue, not wanting to dwell on the inevitability where she would have to come clean to her pseudo-great uncle.

“Okay so, Walt Duckman, sounds really boring, but actually, _Song of myself_ is super gay.[ii] They just never show us the gay parts in English class. And then I went and started really researching this stuff, and it turns out that there’s just lots of hidden gay in so much poetry! So now I’m making my presentation on Miguel Pistoles, this famous Mexican poet from the turn of the twentieth century. He was a cowboy in his youth, and ended up having like hundred children, so everybody always read his works as the ultimate manly-man stuff, but I actually have a pretty strong case that he was a bisexual, and that his _Once I held a_ _Highland Flower_ , is actually about a man. Ms. Sonnet is going to fall of her chair when I make my presentation!”

“Yeah!” Webby laughed and fist-bumbed Gosalyn, who was grinning like a madwoman. “Go and destroy them!”

“Yep! That’s me. Gosalyn Mallard, the butch lesbian tomboy extraordinaire, dissecting poetry like a boss!”

Webby was reaching to wipe a spot of chocolate from Gosalyn’s beak, when they were interrupted by an explosion. Her reflexes instantly taking over, Webby had already leaped from the chair, in battle stance and eyes scanning for the cause of the noise.

Besides her, Gosalyn was in a similar stance. (Sometimes Webby wondered how at ease Gosalyn was around danger, how well she knew how to defend herself, how she too scanned the room for the nearest exit every time she entered one. Webby had been trained, so she could hold her own against people who would want to hurt her family; what was Gosalyn’s story?)

The source of explosion came from the jewelry store next door, and it should not have come as any surprise to Webby, when she saw the beagle boys running from the building, sacks flung over their shoulders.

“In the middle of the day? What amateurs are these?” Gosalyn asked, sounding almost offended.

“The beagle boys aren’t exactly the sharpest pencils around.” Webby answered, to an empty space next to her. “hey where-“

Gosalyn was already running off, ponytail swishing back and forth, brandishing in her hands nothing more than a pocketknife. Webby’s blood run cold.

“Hey you!” Gosalyn yelled, catching the attention of the beagle brother closest to her, who had only time to turn his head and gape in confusion, before said pocketknife was buried deep into the man’s tight.

Webby did not see the beagle boy fall to the ground, clutching his leg and wailing, while Gosalyn cracked her knuckles threateningly at the remaining two. Webby was too busy digging for her grappling hook from her purse.

As soon as she had her weapon of choice in her hand, she aimed it at the largest beagle boy, the hook snatching on to the edge of the man’s red shirt at the nape of his neck. The pull was not enough to topple the hulking man over, but when Webby launched herself towards the man, her feet connecting with the dog’s head with lethal precision, the huge body fell face first into the asphalt.

The last remaining beagle brother looked from Gosalyn, (a splatter of blood on the side of her face,) to Webby, (Still standing on the back of his unconscious brother,) and dropped the sack of diamonds he had been carrying.

“Why??!! Why is it always them?!”

Gosalyn snorted, seeing the beagle boy sit down on the ground, wailing to himself. “You guys wouldn’t last a day in Saint. Canard.”

As police sirens wailed in the distance and full of adrenaline, and love, Webby threw her grappling hook to the ground and strode towards Gosalyn, veins burning. Gosalyn met her halfway through, and then they were kissing, not timidly like they usually did, but aggressively, bravely one might even say.

“Gr-mph. Ladies.”

Webby jumped back, while Gosalyn just turned her head to give the police officer a pissed of stare.

The police officer, a big muscular pelican, an antithesis to Launchpad in all expect physicality, glowered at them. Webby frowned. They had stopped the criminals, they hadn’t destroyed any public property, and still they were being stared down like they were the ones doing something wrong.

When Gosalyn wrapped her arm around Webby’s waist, and the officer’s eyes flicked down and up again, Webby realised what the problem was.

“Can I have your and your friend’s names please?”

Gosalyn was already on top of things, not even seeming to notice that the cop kept sneaking glances at the hand securely at Webby’s waist.

“Gosalyn Mallard and Webbigail Vanderquak. We were on a date when these bozos-“ She pointed her thumb at the beagle boys being led into the police van, “Decided to interrupt. So we just did what any good citizen would do!”

“I see.” The pelican said, and did not proceed to ask any more questions about the crime itself, as they had both expected. “Webbigail Vanderquak? Scrooge McDuck’s ward?”

Webby blinked. “Well…yes. I don’t see how that-“

“So, does Mr. McDuck know what you are getting up to here.”

“Pfft, he and Webby kick criminal-butt together all the time. It’s basically bonding time for them.” Gosalyn waved her hand carelessly, smirking at the officer.

“Not what I was referring to.”

“Yeah, I know what you were referring to. Of course Mr. McDuck knows that Webby has a girlfriend, Webby lives with him, duh.”

Webby swallowed and suddenly her mouth felt too dry. She realised with sudden clarity that the web she was weaving herself in, with every word she left unsaid, would come back to haunt her eventually.

“I see. Well I have to say that I am surprised, that’s all. Don’t want to offend you ladies at all, but I guess it is good marketing move for him on this day and age.”

Webby might have been willing to slink away from the scene and let the insult to both her and uncle Scrooge to slide, but Gosalyn had never been one to just take an insult laying down.

“Excuse me! You think that this-!” she gestured between Webby and herself, “is some kind of an ad campaign!”

“I don’t think nothing at all. Just that I’ve read Mr. McDuck’s biography, and know that on his day they didn’t put up with all this silly nonsense. But I guess that he has to appeal to the millennial market somehow after all.”  

Gosalyn was left speechless, gaping at the pelican who just shrugged and calmly walked away.

“Did you- Can you believe-!” Gosalyn spluttered in indignation.

“Yeah, let’s just go.”

Looking at Webby’s nervous face, Gosalyn narrowed her eyes. “He wouldn’t do that right? We aren’t about to end up selling rainbow coloured scarves at the next pride march, or some other nonsense like that?”

“What no! Of course not. Actually… I kinda, sort of, haven’t told uncle Scrooge about us.”

“What, why?”

“Well, you know. I don’t want to…things to get awkward.”

“And why would things get awkward.” Gosalyn asked with voice warningly sharp.

“Gosalyn c’mon! It’s easy for you, with just you and your dad, but it’s different for me. Uncle Scrooge is…well, uncle Scrooge. He was born in a different time, and he has his public image to think about! The stock market and all.”

“You think that our relationship is going to tank the stock market.”

“No! I just don’t want that things change between me and my family! I don’t want to give up what we have and make everything complicated! I don’t want to be the weird one again!”

“What year are you living on Webster!?

“Look! Gos!” The situation was fastly spiralling out of Webby’s control, and the familiar panic that she had thought had been put behind her, was acting up. The words just came out of her beak, and she couldn’t make them stop. “I’ve been miserable this week, and it’s really stressing me out! Everything just became so complicated after we started going out, and I don’t know what I should do, and I don’t want to lie to anyone, but I don’t know how to talk about this either, and I just- It’s not so easy!”

Gosalyn looked at her, stunned, and something vulnerable flickered in her eyes, before it was pushed back.

“Oh I see. Well if that’s how you feel about us, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience your life too much. I’m not forcing you to come to these dates, if you feel so strongly about them, you know.”

Webby felt her traitorous voice die in her beak. She knew that she had messed up, and that she needed to say something, anything, but nothing came out. Only thing she could hear was her own blood rushing inside her ears, and all words felt out of reach.

Gosalyn, blinked, and then turned around with attitude. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, Vanderquak.” She threw over her shoulder, before stomping away, leaving Webby to listen as the police van drove away, and as her heart slowly retreated somewhere deep inside her.

 

Scrooge McDuck was walking uphill towards his own home, the darkness already settling over Duckburg. He had needed to stay in the office for overtime, and hadn’t the heart to make Launchpad stay waiting for him on a Saturday, and forcing Scrooge to pay him for overtime. So, he had shooed the over-eager pelican to go home, and decided to walk back home. He would not waste money on something like a taxi, when he had two well-functioning legs.

 Passing a bookshop, his mood fouled immediately, seeing the abomination on display. His lawyers had once again reminded him that there was nothing illegal about unauthorized biographies, and that the case of _I don’t like it_ , would not stand in court. Especially as this particular writer had not only gotten all of their facts right, but also that the writer presented him in entirely positive light. Going to court against them, would only make Scrooge himself look bad.

But he did not like it, not only was there the issue of someone else making _money_ with his name, there was also the peculiar feeling of losing control over yourself with every book that was set loose on the world, with his name on the title.

Scrooge had leafed through the newest offender, and quickly seen the pattern, with the first paragraph declaring that, _From the humble origins in Glasgow, there was only one individual strong and ambitious enough to dream about different life, and to take steps to achieve it._ From there on the book went through all of his successes, presenting them as a neat upwards pointing arrow of inevitability, with no detours of any kind. No hesitations, no struggles.  

Like he had never seethed in bitterness when the church charity arrived to Glasgow’s east end and only gave their loaf of breads in exchange for assurances on their own good heartedness, and who never made a move to get the city to fix the poisonous water-pipes.

Like he had never cried alone in the South African savannah, carding the sand with his hands, trying desperately to find something valuable, having only dirt in his hands. Fearing that he would not be enough, that he would never be able to help his family, that eventually all his struggles would be for nothing.

Like he hadn’t walked the streets of Dawson, despised, and relished in how everyone hated him. Learned to treat slurs as marks of pride, to enjoy the eyes that stared at him as he passed by, to smirk at the whispered words being exchanged about him. To hate the world with the same passion as it hated him.

Like he still wasn’t trying desperately to be the kind of a person that his childhood self wouldn’t have hated, and vaguely suspected that he was failing.

Not that he would want the public to know about all the long and lonely nights spent under the open sky, feeling like the world was crushing him, and that his quest was nothing but futile. That he had abandoned his family to Glasgow for nothing.

But the larger-than-life figure that sometimes haunted the way people spoke about him, wasn’t always any better. Sometimes in the slow hours of the night, there came to him the horrible thought that his family saw the Scrooge McDuck from the legend as a preferable version to the real-life version. And he knew that in race against his own legend, he would always lose.

Hadn’t one girl already believed in the story of an adventurer who never failed, and then paid too great price for following on those footsteps.

Scrooge pushed that train of thought aside with well-practiced viciousness, and noticed that he had reached his front door while wallowing on his own misery. Next time he would have to just swallow the price of paying overtime and make Launchpad stay. Riding with Launchpad did not leave one time to wallow, between all the adrenaline and terror.

Letting himself in, Scrooge creeped through his own home, noticing how empty it seemed now that Donald was in Mexico running an errand, and the boys were visiting their grandmother. Funny how quick he had gotten used to the noise and mess after decade of silence.

From the living room, he could hear the faint noise of the television, and entering found Webby curled on the sofa, staring at the screen, with a face eerily reminiscent of how Scrooge himself remembered staring at the wall of his cabin for hours after getting a handful of coins thrown on his face, by a woman who turned out to hate him after all.

“Ah, Webby. How was your day?”

Webby flinched a little, being awoken from her comatose, and took a moment to recognise that Scrooge has asked her a question.

“Fine.” Came the grey answer.    

Worried, Scrooge settled down on the sofa next to his honorary niece, and tried to find a delicate way to get the girl to open up. Nothing came to his mind. He wasn’t built for delicate conversations.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Don’t lie to me lass, I have eyes on me head.”

Webby hugged a pillow closer and didn’t answer. Teenage angst, how was one supposed to break through it?

“Maybe you should talk to your grandmother.”

At first Webby made no inclination that she had heard anything, but her small voice finally could be heard muffled against the pillow.

“I think I screwed up with Gosalyn. I said something dumb, and now I’m pretty sure that she hates me.”

Scrooge swallowed down his first comment, _well, isn’t that always the story of falling in love with girls in this family,_ realising that it would not be well received. Besides he was quite certain that whatever Webby had done, it had not involved accidentally implying that you thought of the person you were in love with only as someone to be bought.

“I’m sure she does not hate you. You’re a wonderful lass Webby, one mistake is not going to change that.”

Webby turned those huge wet eyes to him, and slowly shuffled closer. It was uncharacteristically hesitant of the usually so vibrant girl. A weight settled in Scrooge’s stomach, the fear of his family once again drifting away from him. Of the children growing up and realising that the fun adventure-uncle had darker shades to him too, and wanting nothing to do with him anymore.

Scrooge extended his arm and pulled the girl close to his side. “Webby, whatever happened can still be fixed. Call her tomorrow. It’ll be fine. If she really loves you, she’ll understand.”

Webby went rigid in his arms, and Scrooge quickly went through his words in his head. What went wrong? The love. Was it one of those things that the youth didn’t want to use at this age. Something about not defining themselves too much. Language had a habit of evolving faster than he did these days.

“What did you say?” Webby whispered into Scrooge’s jacket.

“I…I’m sure that Gosalyn will not abandon you just like that. She cares a lot about you, you can see it in the way she looks at you.”

Webby sat up quickly, curiosity finally sparkling in those eyes. “Really?” Then confusion took over the curiosity. “Wait, you mean to say…That you know about me and Gos?”

“I…Doesn’t everyone?”

“What!? No! I mean…Doesn’t everybody think that we are just friends? We’re both girls.”

Scrooge got the sudden urge to hit his head against the wall. He was having _this_ conversation again. In a year 2017. He was going to really have _this_ conversation again. Just like he had done with Donald and Della in the nineties. Just like he had done with his secretaries in the fifties and sixties. Just like he had ended up having with countless business partners and employees and other miscellaneous people who went through hoops and leaps to hide their partners from him in fear of offending his sensibilities.

He should probably make a public service announcement some of these days.

“Webby. Lass. You listen carefully now. Your generation did not invent sex, and it most definitely did not invent love. I’m 150 years old, and I have lived through many different definitions of the _natural order,_ and _proper values._ And real people have _never_ in history been all able to fit into any of them.”

Webby launched himself back to embracing her uncle, now crying openly. “I thought you wouldn’t like me anymore!”

“There, there, lass. Is that how little you trust your uncle Scrooge.” Scrooge tried to sound only teasing, but sliver of his own insecurities found its way into his voice.

Webby, smart girl as she was, picked up on them

“I’m sorry I doubted you, uncle Scrooge.” She mumbled, into his neck, before detangling, and wiping her eyes. “I guess I have been just making a fool of myself this whole time.”

“Well, it comes with that age.” Scrooge ruffled her hair. “Truth to be told, I wasn’t any better when I was a teenager.”

“No way. You were already working, and adventuring, and being cool.”

“How would you know, you weren’t there.” Scrooge gently pushed on Webby’s forehead, until she tipped over backwards, giggling on the sofa. “I can’t imagine you as a teenager.”

“Most people can’t. And that’s a blessing most of the time. So, keep your secret to yourself, Webby darling. Alright?”

“Cross my heart! No one will ever know that the great Scrooge McDuck was ever a child!” She giggled again. The weight on Scrooge’s gut was lifted hearing her happiness.

“Now, it’s getting late. You should go to sleep. Tomorrow will look brighter.”

“Yeah. And hey, thanks uncle Scrooge.”

   

 

 

_1882, the American plains_

The night settled over the prairie like a huge blanket. In the settling darkness one could hear the ever-present sounds of the cattle, the distant sounds of a coyote howling, and of course the comforting crackle of the fire.

Other noises could be heard too, but the fifteen-years old Scrooge McDuck, locally also known as Buck, was trying to ignore them.

“Are they starting another round?”

Scrooge groaned and buried his face deeper into his bedroll. “Thanks, Migs. I was trying to ignore it.”

Migs, the young rooster, only laughed. He was a shameless creature like that. Young, and vibrant, and lived to tease Scrooge, who was also young, but mostly silent, and slightly awkward with people.

“Honestly, you are such a maiden sometimes. You already know that they bugger together.” [iii]

Scrooge did know that Pabló[iv] and Billy buggered together. Everybody knew that. They had been working as trailhands for longer than Scrooge had been alive, and had settled into their boringly domestic bachelor marriage[v] long before Scrooge had even thought about America in his dreams.

“ _Knowing_ , and having to _listen_ , are two very different things. I’m going to have to look them in the eye next morning, and I’m not sure if I can.”

Migs, the bastard, laughed again. Scrooge suddenly wished that he had been smart enough to request a turn of patrolling this night. It hits him then that Antonio and Chester had probably predicted this, when they saw that they would be camping next to a river, and taken a practical retreat. They were bastards too.

From the river came the sound of a hearty moan, a huge splashing sound, and then even heartier cursing. Scrooge and Migs exchanged looks, and then couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“iss all aboot the balance!” Migs imitated Pabló’s self-important voice that he had a habit of adopting when he taught the younger boys rope tricks. Both boys ended up guffawing (manly cowboys don’t giggle) again.

As their guffaws (giggles) died down, silence again returned. It was only the hooves of the cattle and the gentle splashing from the river mixing with the sound of fire. It was peaceful.

Migs of course had to ruin it. He was allergic to silence, it would sometimes seem.

“Honestly, after all this time you would think that they have their technique figured out.”

Scrooge groaned again. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Aww. You really are such a maiden.”

“Shut up Migs.”

Scrooge could feel Migs´ gaze on his neck. This promised nothing good, as long silences from Migs never did. They just meant that he was plotting something.

“Are you?”

“What?”

“A maid?”

Scrooge rolled his eyes and sat up. Migs was feeling restless again, and that means that Scrooge would not be allowed to sleep either. Or pretend to sleep.

“Are you blind? Of course, I’m no lass.”

Now it was Migs’ turn to roll his eyes. “You ever buggered anyone? Some pretty lad here in the plains? Or maybe given green gown to some highland beauty back home?”

Scrooge didn’t particularly want to have this conversation, but he decided not to fight it either. This was probably the most delicate that anyone was ever going to put their questions, so he might as well get it over with. And it was not the sex part that made him blush, he used to have lengthy discussions with his neighbour, (or more accurately, Maggie used to vent about her customers, and Scrooge loaned a listening ear,) when they were both doing laundry at the same time. It is his own personal life he doesn’t like to share.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no. I don’t see all the fuss.” He knows that he is a rare one, a working-class boy untouched by fifteen years, but it’s true, he has never felt the burn. It might make him an anomaly, but he has never cared about being an anomaly.

“You lying!” Migs breathes, and crawls closer. “A pretty face like yours!”

Scrooge contemplates his friend, who is so close, big dark eyes shining in the firelight. In here it’s different than in the cities. In the cities, everyone is trying to focus on getting married to someone the church and state will approve off. (of your own class, of your own race, of your own religion, woman preferably ten years younger than the man.) Out here everyone is just lonely. It’s a bit like the east end, just with much more space, and more clean water.

He still doesn’t feel the burn, but he thinks how he is already fifteen, and maybe he should just try, and kisses Migs. The cocky rooster takes it all on stride that implies that he has been waiting for this. Or, that he is just this used to young men kissing him on random. Probably former, Migs is young, handsome, and always dragging a new boy off to the woods when they stop to meet with new people.

The rooster locks his arms around Scrooge’s neck and drags him down with him. He has already gone from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds. Scrooge still doesn’t feel much anything, but he makes the effort. Everybody always makes such a fuss about sex, that there must be something magical about it.

Migs moans in to the kiss and presses his body closer. He soon starts peppering Scrooge’s neck with kisses and whispers fervently, “Oh yes, show me your trick riding skills luv.”

The kisses feel mostly wet, and the burn is still not there.  The need for sex, is just not there in him.   

“all right, no.” Scrooge detangles himself from his friend, who looks slightly confused. “Sorry, but it’s just not going to happen.”

Migs pouts at him. “Aww. What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just…Not there.” Scrooge straightens his shirt, and tries to avoid his friend’s eyes. He feels funny. He doesn’t feel disgusted and sinful, so it’s not the threat of hell that is stopping him, but he does feel simply unenthusiastic, which he has no frame of reference to deal with.   

Migs pouts more, but luckily doesn’t get aggressive about it. He is a good sport underneath his annoying tendencies, which is mostly why Scrooge had the courage to experiment in the first place.

“you’re breaking my heart McDuck.” He laments, and falls dramatically backwards.

“Well, bully for you!” Scrooge can feel the smile tugging at his beak as he feels his heartbeat calm down.

“No really! I’m absolutely devasted! Wasting away! Being rejected by such a handsome youth, I will never recover!”

“You’re an annoying pest.”

“I’ll dedicate a poem for you and the heartbreak you are causing me!” Migs laughed, and then laughed some more seeing the horrified face his friend was making.

“Don’t you dare!”

Migs laughs again, and the sound makes Scrooge feel better. They were alright, they were still friends. It was fine. It was all fine.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i] The violet was adopted as the symbol of Sapphic desire in the 1920s, popularised by the play The Captive. They are also referenced in one of Sappho’s poems, which is where the probably were picked up in the 20s.
> 
> [ii]  http://flavorwire.com/459904/walt-whitmans-song-of-myself-just-the-gay-parts
> 
> [iii] homosexuality was an unspoken norm on the American frontier, where men were close and women were scarce- http://www.daviddennett.com/01_Site/cowboy_GayWonWest.shtml
> 
> [iv] The job of a cowboy was harsh, and not well paid, so of course most of the cowboys were poor immigrants. Most of the cowboy slang originates from Spanish, because the cattle ranching originated from Mexico. Mexicans and black people were very common sight as cowboys, despite what the movies might want you to believe.
> 
> [v] Men routinely shared beds in mining communities and on the range, and cowboys and miners settled into partnerships that other men recognized (and sometimes referred to) as "bachelor marriages." - Paradise of Bachelors: The Social World of Men in Nineteenth-Century America


	3. Chapter 3

 

Webby twirled again in front of the mirror. The pink dress swirled around her legs in a way that made her think of beauty queens from Hollywood’s golden age. There was a modest amount of eye-shadow and mascara on her face, and she looked _old_. Not like a child at all. Fourteen had never felt older.

She kind of liked it.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and turning around she could see her grandmother enter the room. She looked uncharacteristically sentimental, looking at Webby in her dress.

“The others are almost ready.”

“So am I granny.”

Her grandmother looked at her for moment in silence and Webby wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“You are starting to look a lot like your mother.” Her grandmother ends up saying, sitting on Webby’s bed, still looking at her granddaughter who is starting to slip towards womanhood. “Ah, forget I said anything, I don’t want to ruin your mood.”

Webby smiles, understanding, and lets the issue slip.

“Now-“, her granny continues with the familiar no-nonsense voice, “you have your taser with you?”

Webby sighs with good humour and pulls the taser from a pocket hidden in the folds of her dress. “Of course granny. And it’s only a gala. We go to much more dangerous adventures with uncle Scrooge almost every month!”

“Dear, galas can in my experience be much more dangerous than jungle expeditions. Wild beasts don’t try to befriend you before trying to kill you.”

“I’ll be with the others. Uncle Scrooge will be there. I’ll be fine.”

“I know. Just don’t go anywhere with strangers.”

“How old do you think I am?!”

“It’s a habit.”

Webby huffed and went to give her grandmother a hug. In truth, she was a bit nervous but not for the same reasons that her grandmother was. This was her first time attending a proper party, a fancy, grown-up party, with dress codes and invitations. In the back of her head there was a voice constantly yelling at her how she was going to embarrass herself and uncle Scrooge.

She was ignoring the voice with prejudice.

The other reason for her uneasiness was…well. Stupid really, but she couldn’t help it.

Looking at her phone, she felt an urge to try one more time. If maybe this time Gosalyn would answer.

She probably wouldn’t, as she hadn’t for the last week.

At first, Webby had wallowed solely in self-pity, then she had started to worry if something bad hadn’t happened to Gos, and now she was caught swinging between the two fears and quilt that she wasn’t sure which one was worse. The idea that Gosalyn had cut Webby completely out of her life, or that Gosalyn couldn’t answer for some reason.

Somehow going to Saint. Canard without planning to see Gosalyn seemed wrong.

Her granny’s gaze followed Webby’s and taking the cell from the table she slipped it also into one of Webby’s hidden dress pockets. “If you get into trouble. Or if she decides to finally call.” The last part was said with a touch of disapproval, and Webby wanted to defend Gosalyn, but knew that nothing would sway her granny of thinking Gosalyn a delinquent heartbreaker at this point.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be safe, and I’ll have loads of fun.”

“Be sure you do.” Her granny said, and ushered her towards the door. “Come now, the others are probably waiting already.”

The others were waiting, but not for Webby. It was Louie who was still stuck in the bathroom, fixing his hair to perfection.

“C’mon bro! Are you fixing every feather one by one!”

“Perfection takes time!”

“Chop chop lads! Time is money!”

“Junior woodchucks guidebook says-!”

“Nobody cares Huey!”

“Get out of the bathroom Louie, we’ll be late!”

“Launchpad isn’t even here yet!”

“Hey guys! Ready to roll?”

“Well he is now!”

“I’m ready uncle Scrooge.” Webby hollered to uncle Scrooge, ignoring the familiar chaos that was the Duck family trying to get anything done. For a family so used to leaving the manor for treasure hunts with no warning whatsoever, they were surprisingly bad at leaving the house when it was planned in advance.

“Thank you, Webby darling. Launchpad is waiting outside, you can all go in to the car.” Scrooge smiled at her, dragging protesting Louie behind him. (I just needed one more minute!)

The four children filed into the car, excited and chattering, all suited up and fancy. Even Launchpad had donned a suit that made him look exactly like the chauffeur for the richest man in the world. It was good to see him again after his sick-leave that had kept him away from work for the last week.

“You guys ready for the party?”

“No! My feathers are a mess.”

“Launchpad, start driving. We don’t want to be late for the free buffet.”

The limo jerked forwards, and everybody was pulled against their seatbelts. The first instinct you learned riding with Launchpad was to always secure your seatbelt the same second you sat down in the vehicle.

As the scenery blurred past the window, Webby felt again the familiar melancholy pulling at her mood. In some other situation, she would have been ecstatic about the opening party for Saint. Canard’s historical museum, that had managed to invite an exhibition on pre-Columbian cultures to appear in their museum for the summer. Uncle Scrooge was planning to donate in exchange for getting to study some of the old manuscripts. The kids were already sensing an adventure in the future. The adventure that Webby could have invited Gosalyn to. She would have loved it.

 

The museum lobby had been cleared and transformed into an elegant space for the guests to mingle. The ambient lights reflected from the polished floors and the buffet table was laden with complicated little snacks. From the large windows, Webby could see that the garden had also been opened for the guests and decorated with lanterns and tents full of even more complicated finger foods.

Webby offered a thought to her younger self who had diligently watched princess-movies and dreamed of pretty dresses and balls.

Turning her head, she started to say something to Dewey, but noticed that he was no longer next to her. In fact, none of them were. Feeling suddenly small and out of place, she hurried forwards, deciding to start by going through the buffet tables, suspecting that at least one of them would be sampling the delicious looking food.

Reaching the third table, she still hadn’t found her family, but she had sampled many excellent foods and was currently stuffing her face with chocolate eclairs, when a rustle of fabric stopped by her side and a voice like velvet said her name.

“Webigail.”

Jumping and turning, Webby came face to face with a woman that could have walked straight out of a black and white Hollywood movie. Her blonde hair was streaked with silver and it was completely impossible to determine her age from her face. She was wearing a simple red dress that looked on her much more suggestive than its simple cut should have allowed for.

She looked ageless in the same way that uncle Scrooge did, and that was what made her throat suddenly feel dry as she swallowed her éclair.

“Forgive me dear, I saw you on the paper with Mr. McDuck some time ago. You are Webigail Vanderquak, aren’t you?”

And I have seen you, in grainy photographs dated back to the Klondike gold rush, Webby thought.

“I…yes. That’s me.”

“Those violets compliment the fabric of your dress very well. Are they real?”

“From our garden.” Webby mumbled, brushing the hairband where the flowers were secured with her fingers.

“How lovely. I have always found that there is no sense in using flowers as decoration if they aren’t real. Reminds everyone how wilting true beauty is.”

Webby stared at the woman who looked at most to have aged couple decades from the photographs dated back to year 1898.

“You are here with Mr. McDuck, I would assume?” she continued speaking, not caring in the least that Webby was staring in a very rude manner. “I would like to have a quick chat with him.”

“I…I lost him.” Webby said, and then couldn’t help it anymore. “You’re Glittering Goldie!”

Now Goldie looked at Webby, instead of just letting her eyes rest were Webby was currently standing.

“That is a name I haven’t been known in quite a while.”

“I- I know who you are. I have studied uncle Scrooge’s life my entire childhood! You were in Klondike with him. You are- You are like him.” Webby looked at her hair, still generously striped with gold.

“I would say that he is like me, as I found the fountain first, but yes. You are right of course. You said that you lost him?”

Webby nodded, perspiring slightly. She felt like a ten-year-old all over again, awkward and insecure and completely unable to string together a coherent sentence.

“Well, it is easy to lose him.” Goldie said, and snatched a shampain glass from a waitress walking by. She lifted it in a quick salute towards Webby and then turned around, disappearing into the sea of people.

Webby was left behind, blinking and feeling like some kind of charm had been lifted from her. Quickly she stuffed a little cake into her mouth, and trotted off to find someone she could share the news with. Glittering Goldie was here! In this party!

All thoughts concerning the mysterious dancehall girl were wiped from her mind, as she caught a familiar mop of red hair from the corner of her eye. Twirling around, she saw that it was not her imagination. Gosalyn Mallard was there, standing on the shiny floor, hair loose and deep red in the ambient light. She was not wearing a dress, and Webby couldn’t even imagine her in one. She walked around the room with purposeful steps, and Webby panicked. Before she could even properly acknowledge the rushing in her ears, she had already bolted.

A door to a supply closet presented itself like a gift to Webby who felt like even breathing demanded special amount of effort right now.

Throwing herself amidst the darkness and the mops, she slammed the door shut behind her and slammed into something warm and fluffy.

“OUFH, who are-!?”

“What the-!?”

“Webby?”

“Uncle Scrooge?”

The blue glow of her phone-screen illuminated the small space enough that both Webby and Scrooge saw each other blink in surprise.

“Uncle Scrooge why are you here!?”

“Hsssh! Not so loud Webby darlin’. Someone might hear.”

“Why are you here”, she whispered.

“Why are you here?”

“I asked first.”

“Fine, I’m hiding. One of my old enemies is here, and I saw her from across the room, and just needed a moment to gather myself before confronting her.”

“Is that old enemy called Goldie O’Gilt by any change….”

Scrooge made a distressed duck noise, before sighing in defeat. “I’m not even going to ask how you know about her.”

“I’ve seen pictures of her in the old newspapers.”

“Hah, I really should have encouraged you to get a time-consuming hobby when you were younger.” Webby placed the phone with its flashlight on between them on the floor, and settled into a more comfortable position, leaning against a shelf. “I had plenty of hobbies.”

“Maybe. But now you are trying to distract me from asking why you are here.”

Webby fidgeted the hem of her dress between her fingers. “Eeeh…It’s just…Gosalyn is here.”

Scrooge’s eyes widened in the faint light. “Gosalyn Mallard?”

“Well, who else.” Webby grumbled. “And isn’t that just my luck.”

“Well, isn’t it? You have been moping about not getting a change to speak with her the whole week. Now’s yer change.”

“No! If she hasn’t been answering my calls or texts, there must be a reason. She hates me. I can’t just go to her in a middle of a party, I’ll cause a scene! Why is she even here, I mean-!” Her words were starting to jumble together in her rush to get them all out.

“Lass! Stop. Calm down. Have you considered that maybe it is just a misunderstanding? Maybe she lost her phone.”

“And her internet connection? And all the phones of her friends and family too?”

“Crazier things have happened.” Scrooge shrugged. “You can’t run away from this. You’ll regret it more if you don’t even find out what she thinks. I know that you are braver than this, Webby lass.”

Webby slid down to a very undignified sprawl on the floor. “Getting a crush was a really bad idea.”

Scrooge snorted.

“So, what’s the deal with you and Goldie O’Gilt anyway?”

Scrooge choked, letting a very quiet distressed duck noise. “Nothing.”

“Oh, c’mon. we are both hiding in the supply closet of a really fancy party avoiding pretty girls; there has to be some story.”

Uncle Scrooge gave her a flat look, which did not discourage Webby at all. Her demanding look finally cracked Scrooge’s defences, and he sighed in defeat. “Fine. We have a long history. She was a dancehall girl in Klondike, tried to rob me of my gold, heh, good old days. Spangled and flashy….the star of the north….” He was now speaking more to himself than to Webby. “She is prideful, cunning, deceitful and greedy.” He added, wistfully.

Webby had lifted herself back to sit up and leaning forwards. She had never heard uncle Scrooge speak with such tone before. It seemed fitting, here in the half-darkness.

“Our paths tangled in Klondike, and then they never untangled.”

“She says that she has also been to the fountain.”

“She has. We have been to many of the same places.”

“Do you… love her?”

“It’s not always enough. We try not to talk about it.”

“How can you not?”

“We’ve been to the fountain. When you have all the time in the world, it is easy to procrastinate a conversation to the next century.”

Their conversation was halted by Webby’s phone ringing. Webby picked it up, seeing Louie’s name flashing on the screen.

“Hey, yeah I kind of…panicked, No I’m still in the building…..Yeah, I saw Gos too, that’s why I panicked.- I’m…I’m in the supply closet.- Stop laughing!- No don’t make that joke!- Ah, that was so painful to hear. Uncle Scrooge? Yeah, I’ve seen him, he is….actually here in the closet with me- NO Louie! Don’t you dare to say it!- Oh shut up, it is not that funny!- Oh, hah hah, I’m hanging up on you, you menace.”

Webby glared at her phone screen, almost wishing for a flip-phone so that hanging up on someone could be done in a more satisfying and dramatic matter. Maybe uncle Scrooge was on to something with his old model.

“Well, Webby lassie. I guess it is time for both of us to face the challenge head on.” The trillionare got up and offered a hand to his ward. Webby accepted and hauled herself also up, brushing the dust from her dress. “Right. I can do this if you can.”

“That’s the spirit.”  

 

Webby could not do this. She was crouching behind the snacks table, and looking, (staring, creeping) at Gosalyn who was sitting in one of the chairs by the corner, holding a plate of cake on her lap, and staring at it angrily. Webby recognised this pissed face, it meant that Goslayn was sad or disappointed. Now that Webby had (spied on) gotten a better look at Goslayn, she could see that she looked ruffled. Not only because she was wearing simple hoodie in a place where everyone else was draped on silks, but because her feathers were unkept and in need of a wash, and her eyes were reddish. When was the last time she had slept?

Webby wasn’t the only one struggling with their resolve. Uncle Scrooge might have looked like he was engrossed in a conversation with an elderly millionaire heiress, but he was actually avoiding meeting with Goldie O’Gilt. Uncle Scrooge just managed to avoid inevitable meetings with more grace than Webby.

Looking back at Gosalyn’s dejected form, Webby took a deep breath and steeled herself. She was not going to procrastinate this to the next century, she was going to talk to Gosalyn right now! Shooting up from her crouch, she startled a dog standing next to the table, wearing a diamond necklace, into dropping her shampain flute.

Webby didn’t care, she strode across the room and stopped to stand in front of Gosalyn, who had missed her entirely until she looked up from her cake and yelped.

“Webby!!”

“Hey-“ Webby was swallowed by Gosalyn’s arms as she hugged her frantically. Whatever Webby was going to say, disappeared from her mind as she hugged her back on reflex. Then her thoughts caught onto her actions, and she pulled back, bewildered.

“Wait you’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad- Oh yeah the radio silence…eh, well. Would you believe me if I said that a supervillain kidnapped me for the last week?”

“Gosalyn, please. If you were, or are, mad you can just say it.”

“Yeah, I thought you might not believe that. Look. Just, can you believe that I _wanted_ to contact you. I just couldn’t. “

Webby went to sit down next to Gosalyn on the bench. “So I didn’t screw up as bad as I thought?”

“You didn’t screw up Webby. Sure, I was pissed for few hours, but I’m always a bit pissed at something. I was going to call you the first thing the next morning but…well it didn’t work out that way.”

A weight was lifted from Webby’s shoulders and she only now realised how hard it had been living with it for the last week. “So…supervillains, huh?”

“I’ll…explain the story later okay. Somewhere a bit more private.”

“Yeah sure, wait! How are you even here? How did you-?“

“Hah. So, I might have missed you a bit…and then I heard from Launchpad that you would be here tonight, and I didn’t really stop and think, I just broke in.”

“You BRO-“ Webby glanced around, seeing the stares they were starting to attract and kept her voice lower, “You broke in!?”

“Well do I look like I was invited.” Gosalyn whispered back. “There is now a window broken in the third floor.”

“you are such a vandal.”

“Pfft. This is a charity fundraiser isn’t it. They can raise some money for that window too.”

“Oh my god.” Webby couldn’t help but giggling. “Don’t tell uncle Scrooge, he is already sour about the amount of money the museum is trying to wheedle out of him, if he knows that he’ll have to pay for a window too…”

“Speaking of Mr. McDuck…Is it just me, or is he totally avoiding that woman in red dress?”

He was. As Webby and Gosalyn sat on their bench, they had a clear view on the complex dance that Goldie O’Gilt and Scrooge McDuck were engaged in. To a casual looker, it might have looked as if both were simply moving naturally from conversation to conversation. But if you know what to look for, it became clear that they moved perfectly in sync. Goldie slowly circling closer, and Scrooge always staying one bundled group of rich people ahead.

“You know, that might be the weirdest form of flirting I have ever witnessed, and I do count that time Dewey tried to ask Laura out.” Webby pondered.

“Whaaaat? Your uncle has a girlfriend?”

Webby winced, realising that she probably shouldn’t be spreading her new knowledge around. Then she shrugged mentally. This was Gosalyn; she was special.

“Kind of….I think that they had a thing in Klondike.”

Gosalyn whistled appreciatively. “That truly is complicated if anything ever was.”

“You don’t even know. We had a chat about it in the closet earlier.”

Gosalyn gave Webby a look. “Why were you in the closet? Is that why I couldn’t find you?”

“Eeeeh….maybe. Yes. I saw you, and I panicked, and I hid myself in the supply closet.”

“Oh my god- Webby don’t ever….Aaah, Dewey was right.”

“Dewey what?”

“I ran into Dewey earlier, and asked him where you were, and he totally whipped me verbally. Called me a delinquent heartbreaker.”

Webby buried her beak in her hands. “No. Not them too. That is so embarrassing.”

“You deserve to have loyal friends.”

Webby raised her beak from her hands, laughing weakly. “Okay. That’s enough of that. Let’s go ask uncle Scrooge if you can come with us on our next adventure.”

“Sounds like a blast.” Gosalyn smiled softly back at Webby.

 

Uncle Scrooge was currently engaged with an elderly dog wearing expensive tux and diamond cufflinks.

“It is absolutely ghastly what this new government is up to- Have you heard the controversy around that bathroom bill, going to ruin our country they are! I can’t believe how we have lost our values!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. I make it a policy to only build exactly one unisex bathroom in all of the buildings belonging to McDuck company. It is both cost-effective and discourages employees from dawdling or gossiping during bathroom break.”

 “you are cold McDuck. One cold hearted bastard. You really hate your employees don't you?” The dog laughed, before slumbering away, still laughing under his breath. Webby and Gosalyn passed him with a synchronised sneer, as only a couple of queer kids faced with casual bigotry could manage, and went completely unnoticed by the dog.

“Hey! Uncle Scrooge!”

“Webby! And Gosalyn, how good to see you two together again.”

Webby threw her uncle a blinding smile. “Yeah. It’s good to be together again.” She took Gosalyn’s hand in her own.

“Webby said I could come with you on your next adventure!” Gosalyn blurted out, excited and ready.

“Sure. Why not.” Scrooge smiled back and Webby breathed in relief. She didn’t think that she could be any happier than she was right now.

“Oh my god!” Gosalyn whelped, pushing past both Webby and Scrooge. “Is that the original _Highland Flower_?”

Trotting next to Gosalyn, Webby looked up at the old manuscript held in a glass-frame on the museum wall. The plaque next to it did reveal that it was indeed the original version of the poem written by the famous poet Miguel Panchito.

“That BASTARD!”

Both girls turned to look at uncle Scrooge, who was staring at the yellowed paper with narrowed eyes, and leaning closer.

“you….knew him?” Gosalyn asked, voice vibrating with newly realised possibilities. “I made a presentation about him, you know. Of course, the teacher gave me an F and called me delusional and claimed that I was trying to push an agenda…but anyway. You knew him?”

“Aye, I knew him. AND I TOLD HIM NOT TO DO IT! That bastard actually wrote that stupid poem!” Uncle Scrooge’s eyes were scanning through the cursive handwriting rabidly. “And he is NOT that good of a kisser!”

The hall did not go silent immediately, it was more that the silence raced from the point zero outwards in waves. The people in immediate hearing area halted their conversations and turned to look at the scandal that was still unaware of being one. Those further away were informed by a trickle of whispers spreading faster than wildfire.

“What?” Gosalyn asked, laughing faintly. Webby could only blink.

Scrooge stepped back from the wall and scoffed. “He had a habit of using his tongue like he was trying to clean the inside of your beak. It was not as attractive as he might have thought.”

“Oh my god…” Gosalyn said relatively quietly, but in the circle of silence that had surrounded them it came out louder than expected.

“I see that you two found your way out of the closet then.” Came the voice of Louie from behind them, and turning around Webby could see the duck with green bow tie sipping from his soda and looking like Christmas had come early. Behind Louie Dewey was simply gawping and Huey looked like he was uncomfortably aware of all the attention they had just gathered.

Webby couldn’t blame him. She had also become very aware of the stares.

An excited chicken with glasses, smart dress and notepad in hand pushed her way through the crowd, almost predatory glint in her eyes. She had been sent to cover a boring gala, and was about to walk out with the scoop of the decade.

“Mr.McDuck, are you a homosexual.”

Scrooge looked at the reporter eagerly leaning into his personal space like she was a bit slow.

“I don't think so...?”

“But you did just confess to sexual relations with this male poet.” The chicken pressed on, pen scribbling away furiously. She was no longer the only curious soul that had pressed closer than was polite.

“Let’s not get carried away. We hardly got that far.”

“So how far did you go? Have you had sex with other men? Are you officially coming out of the closet?”

“I don’t think that that is any of yer business.” Came the absolutely ice-cold answer from Scrooge. “But in the spirit of disclosure and…” he sneaked a glance to Webby “to avoid any future assumptions, I did try fooling around with a lad yes. I’m 150 years old, you don’t live that long without kissing few lads and lasses along the way.”

The reporter blinked up from her notepad. “That is quite adventurous attitude for someone born to the era that you were.”

Scrooge gave her the flattest stare he could manage, the one usually reserved when someone was being especially stupid.

The reporter just stared back, not a hint of self-awareness to what she had just said. 

“Well anyway.” Scrooge continued, annoyed and already suspecting that this would be a PR disaster that his board would not forget to blame him for the next few years, knowing them. “It’s not like heterosexuality was even invented when I was a teenager, or that I have been even that interested in making stitches with particularly anyone.”[i]

Somewhere you could hear a choking sound. Blast. That was the problem when you didn’t keep track on cultural norms frequently. You ended up in situations like these. Scrooge could remember distinctly that they had been talking about gay marriage in the news for the last decade or so, which was obviously not enough information about the contemporary moral-landscape, at all.

“This is like…the greatest moment of my life.” Whispered Louie from behind his smartphone, where he was clearly recording the whole ordeal. Scrooge gave him a stern glare, which made the boy lower his phone, but the device made a comeback immediately after Scrooge turned his eyes back on the mob.

“With all due respect…” the chicken said with no respect at all. “Everyone is interested when they are teenagers.”

“well. I wasn’t. Not until…” Scrooge caught himself quickly, and cleared the train of thought away with a shake of his head. “That’s quite enough of that. My personal life is not part of your amusements. Go, write your tabloids and headlines. They are hardly going to top the ones from the 50s.”

The chicken was clearly having none of this personal boundary nonsense, and was ready to push for more, when she suddenly let out a shrill scream. A large glass worth of red wine had been poured over her head, drenching her curls and the white dress she had been wearing.

“Well, well, well, look at you McDuck. Having your promiscuous youth dragged into daylight.” The velvety voice of Goldie O’Gilt floated into their circle. She was dangling an empty glass in her fingers and looking satisfied.

“Well we can’t all be such sexual conservatives as you.” Scrooge deadpanned back at her.

The reporter spluttered, and for a moment looked like she might have been preparing to blow all over bored looking Goldie. The moment passed, and the woman pushed past the older woman, dripping wine as she went, her notepad beyond salvation by this point.

The crowd scattered, trying to look like they hadn’t been eavesdropping, and were actually all very upstanding moral citizens that were in no way at all interested in such a base gossip. They were all liberal minded protectors of culture, and not prejudiced at all in any way. But dear, can you believe it…

Goldie’s beak twitched in a manner that she might have been supressing a bout of hysterical laughter beneath her calm exterior.

“But honestly, it is not fair to disperse on poor Miguel, after all, everyone else will seem like bad kisser compared to me.”

“you don’t know that.”

Goldie cocked her head.

“What do you want?” Scrooge sighed, and started rubbing his brow tiredly.

Oh, nothing. I’m just passing through.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Well, maybe not. Mostly I just found myself interested in pre-Columbian cultures recently.”

“If you think that you will make it to the ruins before me, you are wrong.”

“We shall see.”

“Yeeeaaahh…I think that we are going to check out the ice-cream table.” Huey injected, grabbing the elbows of both of his brothers and slowly starting to back away. Louie’s protest was quickly cut by Huey’s elbow to the ribs.

Scrooge gave the kids a panicked glance, as he realised that they were abandoning him, which Webby responded with a stern stare. She hoped that it conveyed the message of: ‘If I did it, so can you’ and ‘we made a deal, don’t weasel out of it’.

Gosalyn and Webby followed behind the triplets, still holding hands and excitedly whispering amongst themselves.

“I am so glad that I decided to break in. Totally worth it!”

Glancing over her shoulder, Webby could spy Scrooge and Goldie invading each other’s personal bubble, and Goldie had her head thrown back in laughter.

_Berlin 1909_

“Oh, but it is beautiful! Isn’t it?”

In that moment Scrooge was happy that he had decided to take Matilda with him. Berlin was exactly the kind of place that she enjoyed, that she belonged to. A mix of old European sophistication and the rush of new innovations that the new century was pushing forwards.

“It is profitable,” Scrooge answered, still riding the high of successful business deal. The McDuck industries would soon be a name recognised even in Europe. All over the world, even.

“Ach! Brother! Can you not enjoy an evening out with your sister without thinking of money?” Matilda was still too pleased with her own day roaming the art museums of Berlin, that she did not truly mean it. It had been a lovely day, and Scrooge’s own success had made him amiable company as they strolled down the streets, enjoying the ambience.

“We wouldn’t be here, without my business.”

“Hmm. Fine. But it is a lovely city. I feel sorry for Hortensia stuck in Duckburg.”

“I don’t. She was the one who wanted to stay.”

Matilda hummed again, linking her arm with her brother’s. Scrooge had to silently admit to himself that this was nice. That he was glad when Matilda had insisted upon them taking a day just for themselves in the city, not working. They barely got to spend time together as a family.

They walked together in a comfortable silence, listening to the faint sounds of an urban city pulsing around them.

“Hey! Scrooge McDuck, you old bastard! Is that really you?!” called out a voice in German-accented English.

The voice instantly yanked Scrooge’s memories back to Klondike, to the muddy streets and freezing temperatures. Turning swiftly around, he was still surprised to see the pheasant in a dark jacket standing on a Berlin city street, marching towards the two McDucks, a smile on his face.

“Hans Vogel?”

“You know him?” Matilda asked cautiously, pulling Scrooge just a little bit closer to herself. Scrooge was not sure if she was doing it to shield him or to use him as a shield.

Neither was necessary, as the pheasant pulled Scrooge into almost violent one-armed hug, before stepping back and taking a good look. “You’ve cleaned up nicely.”

“As have you. But then again the last time I saw you I was punching you in the face.”

Hans laughed, and Matilda looked alarmed. She kept switching her gaze between the two men, like she was expecting one of them to launch themselves at the other. Living her childhood as a peace-keeper for Scrooge and Hortense had probably ingrained the response into her. Hans picked up Matilda’s sharp gaze and smiled at her reassuringly. “No worries. That’s how everybody got to know each other in Dawson.” He looked down at where Matilda was holding onto Scrooge’s forearm, and then up with a question in his eyes. “Is she-?”

“My sister,” Scrooge supplies, “Matilda McDuck. Matilda, this is Hans Vogel, he was digging gold in Yukon at the same time as I was.”

It was surreal to see someone you had known in Dawson dressed up clean and generally looking pleasant in a civilized city. The effect must have been similar for the other man too, as he kept looking at Scrooge’s glasses and brushed whiskers, like they didn’t quite belong on his face.

Matilda perked up, interested. “Is that so. What a coincidence!”

“Indeed. I was just thinking the same. And the last time you saw me was not when you were tearing up the Blackjack Saloon. We did meet in Whitehorse too, if you remember?”

“I do.” Scrooge simply answered, still slightly confused what the pheasant wanted with him. Scrooge had not had any friends in Klondike, and for his knowledge Hans had loathed him just the same as everyone else in Dawson had loathed each other in principal.

But right now, there is nothing hard or angry in him, and for a moment Scrooge marvels how the other man has managed to mellow down so easily while he has only been growing warier. Less violent, but no less mistrusting.

“What do you want, Hans?” Scrooge cuts straight to the issue, while Matilda besides him gasps in disapproval.  “Please excuse my brother he is-“

“I know.” Hans huffs. “I once hit him in the head with a chair, us miners don’t do politeness that well.”

Matilda looked like she had swallowed something foul, as she looked between the two.

“But anyways, my gold would still be stuck in Whitehorse if McDuck hadn’t fixed it up, so I can strain myself and at least say thank you. I wouldn’t own my bar if I hadn’t had that gold.” Hans admitted, shrugging his shoulders and twitched his tail. It was a new one, Scrooge idly noted. In Klondike, he had gone with the short, dull one, compensating the lack of colourful feathers with endless supply of anger and fists against anyone who commented. Now he was trailing behind him long and colourful feathers that the male pheasants were so well-known for.

“I’m not a thief. Keeping your gold for myself would have made me one.” Scrooge waved Hans’ gratitude away. It was true. Technically he might have had the legal right to withhold Hans’ wealth on the grounds that his identity papers were sketchy, but it had been Hans Vogel up in Yukon getting frozen and digging up that gold, fighting against claim jumpers and thieves. Heidi Krutz had done none of those things. Withholding all of Hans Vogel’s gold on the technicality that Heidi Krutz was the one to legally exist, seemed too close to what Soapy Slick would do, so Scrooge had silently buried the existence of Heidi and made Hans Vogel the reality, at least in the eyes of Whitehorse bank. 

“Just take the compliment.” Matilda scolded his grumbling brother, and elbowed him on the ribs, hard. Then, smiling charmingly at the pheasant she uttered the words, “So did you know a woman named Goldie up there?”. Scrooge immediately regretted ever coming to Berlin, and started to make movements towards fleeing the scene.

Matilda didn’t let him, her arm like an iron grip around his elbow.

“Everybody knew Glittering Goldie.” Hans answered, looking at Scrooge warily from the corner of his eye.

“Wonderful!” Matilda clapped her hands. “You know, my brother barely talks about his time up in the Yukon, expect to talk about the technicalities of mining. You said you owned a bar? Wouldn’t you mind if we came for a pint? I so want to hear from some of my brother’s friends!” This was not phrased as a question.

“We are not friends!” objected Scrooge, and went ignored.

“So, is your place near?” Matilda inquired, excited.

“Well, uhm. Fräulein McDuck, it is a place for my…folk. I don’t think you would want to-“

“Nonsense, I would like to meet all kinds of folk!”

“You know, the whole city area is bit favoured by all kinds of…deviants. You Americans usually find us a bit shocking.”[ii]

“Hah. Cannot be more shocking than the Molly House[iii] in our neighbourhood in Glasgow. Chop, chop, let’s go!”

“Well.” A sparkle of amusement had appeared in Hans’ eye, that Scrooge did not trust in the least. “Let me then escort you, like a proper gentleman, at least.” He offered his elbow to Matilda, and any hope of escape was crushed in Scrooge. Matilda happily attached herself to Hans’ side, and laughed good naturedly. “Why, thank you kindly!”

Scrooge knew when he had lost, and started to mentally prepare himself for dodging any and all questions pertaining one Goldie O’Gilt, that Matilda would eventually start bothering him with. Again.

 

Two hours later, Hans and Matilda had become best goddamn friends and Scrooge wanted to bang his head against the table in despair. Hans had bribed Matilda with free beer and had now more dirt on Scrooge’s childhood exploits than Scrooge ever wished anyone to have. Still, the trade-off was better than Hans spilling all the dirt on him and the rumours surrounding his dealings with Goldie. This was not for the lack of trying from Matilda’s part, she had subtly and not so subtly tried to veer the conversation back to Klondike, but Hans was not stupid enough to let his beak run away from him when Scrooge was staring him with a promise of a wrecked bar if he said anything too indiscriminating.

There was also the possibility that Hans kept the more pathetic details to himself out of sheer pity, but Scrooge tried not to think on that.

“So, this Glittering Goldie-?”

“Was the most famous woman in the whole of Yukon. She both owned the most infamous saloon on the land and performed in it. There wasn’t a single person in Dawson that wasn’t at least a little bit in love with her. At least out of sheer respect.”

Matilda gave Hans a raised brow.

“Oh no, fräulein Matilda, I was sensibly afraid of her, more than anything.”

“I see.” Said Matilda and turned her eyes to her brother. Her silence was very loud, as she watched Scrooge raise a glass to his beak and sip from it intentionally slowly.  

The silence stretched, and in it Scrooge stretched his senses to catch any excuse that would allow him to abandon this thread of conversation. The bar had been steadily gaining people as the evening had turned towards night and as Matilda had been getting steadily more tipsy and bold with her questions.

From the buzz of conversations around him, Scrooge’s ears picked up on the words “But honestly, I just don’t have the capital-“, and without hesitation, he was off.

“Sorry Matilda, I hear business!” He patted his sister on the shoulder and manoeuvred past her, leaving her indignant “Wait!” mercilessly behind.

Scrooge dodged his way through the bar that’s customer number had exploded between now and when they had first stepped in. Hans was clearly making a tidy profit, Scrooge surmised. He absently calculated the number of people to the costs of the drinks, that he could see drawn onto the chalkboard. A tidy profit indeed. slipping between the androgynous clientele he finally pinpointed the voice that he had originally picked up within the crowd.

Loosely scattered around a phonograph, some draped over a battered couch and rest perched on chairs, was a mixed crowd of different species, all wearing almost aggressively colourful women’s garments, and none clearly born biologically female.

There was a moment of shock, as it hit Scrooge that this group of transvestites was happily lounging in front of a _window_. Back in Glasgow the Molly Houses had been hidden so well that barely anyone had known that they were even there, expect those who went in, and maybe some unimportant street-children who witnessed the people sneaking in and out in the middle of the night.

“Ladies.” Scrooge made his presence known, and was immediately pinned down by a dozen of sharp and curious, (even some lustful) eyes.

“Well, well, well. Look at this, girls. We have an honest to god Gentleman here.” Drawled a wolf in a red dress.

“Is that a real American?” piped an eager stork from the couch.

Grapping a chair from the nearby table, Scrooge settled by the corner of the table and laced his hands in front of him. “I overheard you ladies talking about problems in tailoring business?”

The wolf blinked and then glanced at the dog sitting directly opposite of scrooge, who was currently trying to make herself look as small as possible. The poor dear looked very self-conscious in her dress, even if it did fit her masculine physique very well.

A duck wearing very eye-catching cabaret dress did not have the same problem, but launched happily into a tirade. “Aw mister, you see Adele here is one of the most skilled seamstress in the city;“ she winked at the dog who was slowly sliding down, maybe subconsciously trying to disappear under the table. “-And the only one we know who will make clothes for us transvestites. It is not easy you know, finding clothes for us!” A round of sympathetic grumbling followed from the other cross-dressers. “We keep telling her, that she should get a proper studio. You know she does all sewing in her bedroom now.”

“It’s fine.” Injected Adele.

“Love, you’re swamped in work. And I know that at this rate it will take me about two years to get that dress I commissioned.”

“And where do you think that I will get the money to rent a studio _and_ buy a sewing machine.” Adele snapped back, drawing herself slightly back up on the chair.

“Well, you see this is exactly why I thought that we might have a little chat.” Scrooge said, heart already pumping with the familiar excitement. He fished a pen from his pocket and nicked a handkerchief from a girl sitting next to him (“Hey!)” and started drawing numbers.

“All right, how much is the cost of fabric approximal for each product and how long does it take you right now to finish a dress-“

 

“And where did my coward of a brother disappear to!” Matilda grumbled, craning her neck, trying to find him in the crowds. It was not easy; the crowds were very colourful and loud. One miserly big brother disappeared easily amongst the locals. “Oh! There he is- No wait. That’s not him.” Matilda had stood up and spotted a duck that at first glance could have been her brother, solely because he was dressed in rather muted and dull colours, and was sporting sideburns. On a second glance, it became clear that he was a stranger after all, wearing a green jacket and accompanied by a respectable looking eagle gentleman.

“Oh” Hans breathed out, also spotting the pair. “The Doctor, I completely forgot!” Then he was also off, making his way towards the newcomers. Matilda, with little else to do, followed.

“Magnus!”[iv] Hans enthusiastically greeted the eagle. “So good to see you! Who is your friend?”

The eagle grasped Hans’ hand with familiarity. “You as well my friend! And I could ask the same of you.” He said clearly looking at Matilda. “But this here is my good friend from the academia.” He nodded at the duck standing next to him, the one in a green jacket and eyes that kept Matilda captivated surprisingly long. “Ludwig Von Drake. He is a rising star in the academic circles and a professor from the university of Vienna. He was interested in my research on sexual behaviour in sentient beings.”

“Very nice to meet you all.” The Austrian greeted them and tipped his hat. “And Magnus is very kind, but I would hardly call myself a rising anything-“

“Too modest as always.”

“But I am terribly interested in the advances of modern psychology. Magnus has the most interesting paper written about the persistence of differing sexual desires in all sentient species-“

“Well I hardly think that you need to be a doctor to figure out that all species enjoy having sex, no matter what the police say.” Matilda blurted out, because she was drunk, and therefore bold enough to just blurt these things out of her mouth. For a moment, there was an awkward silence, before professor Von Drake burst out laughing.

It was a charming laugh.

“Excuse me, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t give it. Matilda McDuck, I am…a curious visitor like yourself I guess.”

All thoughts of tracking her brother disappeared completely as Magnus and Hans ushered the four of them to sit down again.

 

It turned out that once you got a bunch of transvestites and transsexuals comfortable with you, they got _really_ comfortable. While Adele and Eva bounced around ideas for where Adele could rent her new workspace, Scrooge was still adding up numbers on a napkin, this time supplied to him willingly by the same lady he had stolen the first one from. A stork in a sequin dress and a feather boa was leaning against Scrooge’s back and pointing her hand over his shoulder at one of the figures. “You know, Adele has been selling the scraps as scarves and doilies, so you can take that into account too.”

“Yes, but the machines have to be fixed up from time to time, so that will also cost some.” Added a duck who pushed herself up close to Scrooge’s side.

“Already accounted for.” Said Scrooge, who would have felt uncomfortable being crowded in like this, but he was in the zone and barely noticed the traces of dye[v] and stray sequins that were being caught into his jacket as the spangly group kept getting more and more excited for their new industrialized tailor shop.

“Oh that would be perfect!”

The group as one snapped their eyes to Eva, the wolf-queen with attitude, who had just snapped her fingers in a decisive way. “We know exactly the place to rent!”

“Oh, where?” Asked the stork, stepping back from Scrooge so she wasn’t doing a blanket impression on him anymore.

The wolf rattled of an address which made all the others in the group (which had gotten larger as Scrooge had been realising his new business venture.) nod in agreement.

“It could work.”

“And it is so close too!”

“And are you sure-?”

“Come, we’ll show you! It is just a block away, you can check it yourself!” The happy stork dragged Scrooge to his feet, and in a flurry of feathers and bright colours the whole gang found themselves on the nightly streets of Schöneberg.

There was a small part of Scrooge that would admit to being charmed by how _enthusiastic_ these ladies were of getting to start a proper business with him. He would never say it out loud, but in the privacy of his own mind he could confess that these were the most _fun_ shareholders that he had ever had for any of his ventures.

The streets were mostly empty, and some music could be faintly heard from a distance. His group of ladies kept chattering excitedly about what they might want to commission, and bringing up names from the community that Adele could maybe even employ.

The space was indeed close, and most suitable as far as Scrooge was concerned. Obviously, seeing the hour, they could not go in but the small storefront with large display windows looked satisfying enough that Scrooge couldn’t think of any problems from that front. The location was perfect, and the rent price as he had heard it agreeable.

“You think there will be any problems from the landlord? We could technically buy the whole place but…”

“Oh no, he is quite sympathetic. Very modern, you know.”

“Good. I trust that you can work it out by yourself with the money that I am lending you Adele?”

“Sure thing, Mr. McDuck. I went to law school for a while you know, before. Well in my other life if you know.”

“Good good, well now-“

He did not get to finish his sentence, as he was interrupted by a new addition to their little party. A much less cheery addition.

“And what is the meaning of this!” An intimidating dog with sharp ears, (cut, what kind of crazy was needed to cut one’s own ears) and sharp toothy smile stared at them wearing a police uniform. A well-practiced silence fell over the group that just moments ago had been loud enough to wake the dead.

“Nothing. We are just walking about.” The wolf said with practiced steadiness.

“Just walking about. Being indecent“, the dog sneered.

“We have passes.” Piped up the stork, sounding much less certain.

“Well, then let me see them.”

Immediately every hand pulled up a piece of paper with synchronised speed.

“What?” whispered Scrooge to the duck next to him, having a general idea, but not the specifics.

“Transvestite pass.” The other duck whispered back. “If a doctor can ordain that for our psychological health we need to cross-dress, we can get a document that allows us to wear clothes of the opposite sex in public.” [vi]

The policeman looked at the sea of documents in front of him, clearly seething that he couldn’t legally do anything. Then his glinting eyes found Scrooge, who immediately realised that things were about to take a turn. He recognised that petty nastiness in a smirk.

“And where is your pass?”

“I- what! I’m not cross-dressing!”

“Oh really. And you actually are a man on the _inside_ , is that it?”

“Well- YES! I think that I was quite born this way.”

“Oh please, that’s what they all say. No pass, and you go to jail.”

“DO YE NAE HAVE EYES IN YE HEAD! I have clear sideburns growing from me face!”

“Who knows with you birds. You can do all kinds of things with glue. Come along now, resisting will just get you into more trouble.”

For a moment Scrooge could only get wordless spluttering out of his beak.

“He really isn’t like us, he’s entirely normal.” Piped up Adele, and Scrooge got the sudden urge to pat her hand, so miserable she sounded.

“A-ha. And it is spending time with a bunch of perverts coming from a known freak bar because…”

“You call me an _it_ again, and I will fashion you a new face.” Came the low growl from Scrooge, who was trying to remind himself that he couldn’t afford to get into scuffles with the law, and only coming up with the familiar boiling feeling from Klondike.   

“The evidence suggests-“ The dog started, relishing on his words, but did not get to go further, which probably saved his face from getting rearranged.

He didn’t get to go further, because the cavalry arrived in the form of Scrooge’s sister, followed by Hans and some other concerned citizens.

“Believe it or not, that is my brother!”

Scrooge didn’t know how to feel seeing Matilda growl at the dog twice her size, but she did it admirably, whipping out a photograph from her purse (why did she have that.) “Here. We are actually siblings.”

“That is clearly a dress-“

“That is a kilt you uncultured thug!!”

“NOW! Let’s all calm down.” Called out the eagle with an authoritative voice. The policeman who had just been so over-confident suddenly looked more apprehensive. “Doctor.”

“I’m glad you know of me.”

“You were part of the trials.”

“Indeed. Tiresome things, having to deal with the Kaisar and the royal family so often.[vii] Now what seems to be the matter here.”  

For a moment pride battled with reason, but finally reason won out, and the police officer simply spat out, “nothing.” Before briskly stalking off.

“Tsk. Nationalists.” The eagle grumbled, before shaking himself off.

“Where did you come from?” Scrooge turned his attention to his sister, who still looked flustered.

“Well, this young lady just run to the bar babbling about how you were about to be carted to jail-“ She nodded towards the fox who had  apparently slipped off without any of them noticing. “-And honestly _how_ do you get into these situations!?”

“Well, this time I promise you, it was _not_ my fault.”

“Yes. You are right.” She sighed, and then couldn’t help the helpless laugh that burst from her mouth. Scrooge felt his own beak twitch in response. It had been an absurd situation.

“I’m so sorry.” Piped the small voice of Adele from behind him, and Scrooge turned swiftly around, about teach Adele an important life lesson.

“Don’t! Stop apologizing for everything, and start pushing back.”

“Huh.”

“Spite-business. This is what is going to happen now. It is when you make more money and achieve more in life than your enemies, and you do it all fair and square just to spite them! Got it?”

“Yes sir.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i] Strictly speaking not true. The terms heterosexual and homosexual were coined in 1868, but were strictly used by obscure academics to each other. Heterosexual and homosexual as terms would have entered the speech of a common citizen only in the 20t century. https://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/the_invention_of_the_heterosexual/ 
> 
> [ii] Berlin, in the beginning of 1900 was the queer mecca of the world. The community absolutely exploded and was suddenly on everyone’s faces. The area of Schöneberg was known as the queer area, with tourists from all over the world travelling to have some gay time. The scene reached its peak during 1930 and was then brutally destroyed by Hitler.  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/berlin-story
> 
> [iii] Molly house was what gay bars were called in 18th and 19th century. It is hard to say how much of an open secret they were for their neighbours, but they were fairly secretive, especially during the tightening social order of the 19th century.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/regency-gay-bar-molly-houses
> 
> [iv]Magnus Hirschfeld was a real person, a jew who escaped the third reich, a doctor who started the study of human sexuality, and a fierce defender of gay and trans rights.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld
> 
> [v] Just a headcanon, but I like to think that the trans folks in duckverse dye their feathers, when the species plumage differs between sexes.  
> 
> [vi] First passes were issued in 1908. Because Nazis destroyed most of the records of them, it is almost impossible to say how many were issued between then and the rise of Hitler. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trans-id-passes-weimar-germany-marcus-hirschfeld
> 
> [vii] Harden-Eulenburg affair was a mess. It initially started when german chief of military secretariat died in the middle of performing a drag show, and got weirder from there. Mostly it revolved around prince Philip on being accused of homosexual affairs, and then the whole royal house and the government got involved, all trying to either credit or discredit prince Philip in order to play the powers. Homosexual rights activists also got involved, as did Hirschfeld. http://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/446834
> 
>  


	4. Chapter 4

Webby woke up with a jolt from the nest of her covers, feeling disorientated and thirsty. She recognised the feeling of having your inner clock wake you up too early after too little sleep, and the memories of the chaotic ride back home from the museum fundraiser floated on her mind. The hyperactivity of all of them, as exhaustion and excitement had turned their minds into a cocktail of manic energy.

She now winced in sympathy, thinking about Launchpad and Scrooge who had had to put up with them for the whole ride home.

The clock on her wall informed that it was only 5am. This was what sometimes happened after a late night. Her body just couldn’t calm down and instead kept waking her up at ridiculous times.

Gosalyn, who was devoured by the blanket so thoroughly that only a tuff of red hair was visible, was still in deep sleep. Webby debated curling back under the covers and wrestling at least one corner of the blanket back for herself again, but her thirst and jittery feeling won out, so she silently slipped out and started to tip-toe towards the kitchen.

The sun was peeking through the windows and painted the wall in a gentle golden hue. Maybe it was the tranquillity of the morning but Webby found herself sneaking silently, even if there was no reason to. Or there hadn’t been until she heard faint noise from the kitchen that she was approaching.

Two faint voices in fact, muffled through the wooden door, but still recognisable as uncle Scrooge and…

Oh.

“You could stay you know. For once. At our age, this sneaking out before dawn is starting to get ridiculous.”

“Nonsense. Where is your sense of inner youth?”

“I mean it. Why not stay for breakfast? Meet the family? Walk out of the front door instead of slipping through the window?”

There was a sound of slight shuffling and faint clinking of ceramics. Webby could almost see uncle Scrooge preparing tea in the half-dark kitchen, like any other early morning.

“Oh. And maybe then stay for the weekend as I’m at it? Bond with your nephews?”

“Well, why not?”

There was a long sigh from the other person in the kitchen and Webby almost forgot to breathe, so quiet she was trying to be.

“Oh Scrooge. I wasn’t made to play house and nest with family like you. I wouldn’t-“

“Maybe ye are just imagining a wrong kind of family to nest with. domestic Sunday afternoons in this house have a bad habit of turning into fights against cursed objects that accidentally got let loose by one of the kids at least before noon.”

Webby tried to not feel guilty about the Laplandic witch-drum incident of last week. It had been more Dewey’s fault than hers, anyways.  

“Oh Scrooge. We have a good thing going, let’s not risk ruining it.”  

There was a long silence that already spoke for itself, followed finally by the sound of someone setting their mug in the sink.

“Well, I will be waiting then. Whenever you are ready.”

Quick footstep headed for the door, and Webby had to jump back as it was pushed swiftly open. Webby blinked up sheepishly and Goldie O’Gilt blinked back. Her hair was down in messy tangles, feathers ruffled and sticking into all directions, and her mascara had spread to form dark half-moons under her eyes; staining her small and soft face-feathers here and there on her cheeks. Dressed in nothing but a rumpled T-shirt, and with well-worn brown coat thrown over her shoulders, she looked entirely different than the glamourous lady of the gala. 

“Aren’t you up early, little lady?” She chuckled, and Webby let out an inner sigh. Either she hadn’t realised her eavesdropping, or didn’t care.

“Erm…uhm.” Was Webby’s intelligent answer.

Luckily the other duck didn’t seem to expect anything intelligent, as she simply walked past the young teenager, disappearing down the hallways with ease of someone who was familiar with the layout of the place.

Shuffling into the kitchen, Webby was faced with uncle Scrooge, leaning against the kitchen sink, feathers also ruffled and dressed only in a dressing gown.   

“What- When did she appear in the mansion?” Webby could remember clearly that Goldie O’Gilt had not been part in the chaos of homecoming late last night.

“Oh, she broke herself in somewhere after midnight. She’s going after the same Mayan treasure as me, so obviously she decided to steal some scriptures from the mansion’s library.”

“She- wait what!”

“Well, to be fair, the security systems of the mansion have been programmed to recognise her and give her only so much trouble when breaking in. Wouldn’t want to make her spend the whole night dismantling the security after all.”

“This is a thing you two just do?”

“She refuses to come in invited,” Scrooge shrugged.   

“And what about the scriptures?”

“They’ll come back. At least when I next time need them. But really Webby, why are you awake at this hour?”

“Late night. Extra adrenaline. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Tea?”

“yes please.”

 

 

Webby woke the next time that morning feeling still groggy, confused, and hearing loud noises from the distance. It took her embarrassingly long to remember that she had woken up once already on the crack of dawn, returned to bed and that now it seemed to be noon, as the clock on her wall told her.

Following the voices, webby ended up in the living room, where everyone was gathered on the sofa, but instead of having their eyes fixed on the TV, they all stared at the laptop opened on the table in front of them.

“Webby! Perfect timing, we were just about to call Donald!” Gosalyn called excitedly and brutally elbowed Dewey to make room for Webby to squeeze into the duck-pile.

In the centre of the sofa, flocked on both side by eager ducklings, Scrooge was leaning forwards and fiddling with the laptop. Webby finally settled herself on Gosalyn’s lap and the squirming pile of feathers settled as the connection came through and Donald’s tired face appeared on the screen.

The triplets all started talking at the same time, their excited voices completely incomprehensible cacophony.

“Allright lads! Quiet! This is a business call, ye can talk to your uncle on yer free time.”

“Oh right business call, that’s why it’s done in our living room.” Louie rolled his eyes and burrowed unimpressed even further into uncle Scrooge’s side, waving at bemused looking Donald.

“Hello boys, Webby, Gosalyn, uncle Scrooge.”

“Hey uncle Donald!!” came a chorus of voices.

The laptop screen revealed an old and run-down looking motel room. Behind Donald, from the mess of covers and pillows on the bed just seen on the edge of the camera, rose a red rooster-head alerted by the noise.

“Ah, Donald, why are you- THE LITTLE ONES!” The rooster scrambled up from the bed (the only bed in the room) and promptly fell face first on the floor, tripped by his own blanket. The rooster was again halted in his way by Donald grabbing an abandoned shirt from somewhere off-screen and throwing it at his head.

“Olá” A second head emerged from the mess of the (really too small for three according to all common sense) bed, a sardonic smile on his beak as the green parrot lazily saluted towards the laptop screen and the furiously scowling uncle Scrooge in it.

“Donald, I don’t pay ye to fool around with yer boyfriends, I pay you to scour the local libraries for clues of the treasure!”

“It’s not what it looks like!” Was the quick and even harder to understand than usual reply from the franctic duck, who had just realised that there was still a bottle of tequila visible on the floor behind him, and was trying to discretely push it underneath the bed with his foot. 

“The children Donald! Look how big they have gotten! No more little fledglings at all!” gushed the excited rooster while wrestling with his clothes, as if Donald had somehow missed the growth of the children he himself had raised.

“Good morning mister McDuck.” The green parrot with a husky voice joined the two others, having thrown a wrinkled shirt from the floor on, and leaned now against the backrest of the chair Donald was sitting on. “We have been selflessly helping our dear Donald in his task, but no need to thank us.”

From the fixed scowl on Scrooge’s face, no thanks would be forthcoming, and the amused parrot seemed to know this. The more pointed Scrooge’s glare was, the more amused the parrot seemed to get.

 “YES!” Donald breathed out. “We were all late last night researching in the library, that’s why we were so tired that we fell asleep right where we fell when we came back to the hotel.” Donald looked pleased with himself, the triplets looked caught between offence at being treated like innocent children in need of such obvious lies, and temptation to just grasp the lie so they wouldn’t have to think of their uncle doing anything more graphic than reading books with his friends.

“No we were-“ started the innocently confused looking rooster, who was interrupted by the hook of an umbrella yanking him backwards. It seemed like the parrot had produced it from nowhere.

“Come now Panchito. Let us go find some breakfast while Donald catches up with his family.” The two birds disappeared off-screen and left Donald alone to face uncle Scrooge’s scowl.

“Are you at least being safe this time?”

A high pitched quak and some wordless spluttering preceded Donald’s vocal insistence that he had no idea what his uncle was talking about.

“Don’t you play innocent with me lad, I still remember the last time. And! You are supposed to concentrate on the job! I dearly hope that that bottle of tequila was NOT paid with the money I gave you for research expenses! Because I’m telling you-!”

There was a klonk, as Donald’s face made contact with the table, and a long groan.

 

Leaving Donald and Scrooge to bicker about what constituted as a travel-expense, Webby and Gosalyn slipped away, making a detour through the kitchen and then ambling outside; taking a quiet moment for themselves underneath one of the older trees on the mansion grounds and chewing on bagels.

“So, you really think that Donald and those latino boys-?”

“I mean obv-iously. Did you see them?” Gosalyn snorted. She did not see uncle Donald as a parental figure, and as such did not find feel like her childhood innocence had just flown away. “Good for him.”

“It’s just…I feel weird. Like I had this image of everyone in my life, and I always thought that I was the odd one out, but now it turns out that uncle Scrooge’s being kissing boys before automobile was invented and uncle Donald has boyfriends across the border and… I don’t know.

“Really? I mean Webs, your family has never been about the white picket fence, two and half nuclear kids, values. When people think of your family, they think of adventures, and uncharted territories, and bold new discoveries. I think it makes perfect sense.”

Webby smiled at her girlfriend, who was showing a bagel to her face in between her solemn bouts of wisdom, and felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

“Hey check this out!” Goslayn swallowed the rest of her bagel, while scrolling through her phone. “Mark Beaks is throwing a twitter tantrum.”

“It’s about uncle Scrooge, isn’t it?”

“Sure is. He seems to be a bit pissed that: ‘The oldest dinosaur on earth came out of the closet before him, the millennial icon’.”

“I don’t think that uncle Scrooge really came out of the closet. It’s a bit more-“

“-nuanced than that. Yeah, good luck explaining twitter that. Also, he did publicly state that heterosexuality is modern-day nonsense.”

“Well he didn’t exactly say _tha_ t.”

“Oh, come on Webs. Enjoy the moment.” Gosalyn grinned like a predator, scrolling through what must have been some spectacular discourse.

Webby groaned and flopped back to the grass. Feeling contently lazy on this fine Sunday afternoon.

“Hey! Webs! Did you know that Duckburg has a LGBTQ-youth group?”

“Oh, no. Why?”

“Because they are holding a picnic in the park right now.”

 

Webby surprises herself by how confident she feels strolling into the Duckburg public park, hand in hand with Gosalyn, and strides across the grass to where the rainbow flag has been thrown over a low-hanging tree-branch. Underneath the casually fluttering flag sits a scattering of young people, who all welcome Webby and Gosalyn with excited smiles and a hurried round of introductions.

There is Francesca, a trans-girl dog, who has blue stripes on her brown hair. There is a shy stork Mike, and his ambiguously androgynous parrot partner Jesse. There are two hens of Webby’s age, Laura and Carmen, loud, friendly and speaking mile a minute. There is a tall and silent dog boy dressed in gothic clothing, Samuel, and a seagull girl Aaliyah in a pale blue hijab and with a sketchbook open on her lap.

They introduce themselves to Webby and Gosalyn as the LGBTQ-youth group of Duckburg, for the queer folk who are too young to meet at the Office, and too fed up with having to hang around the café outside the Office all the time in order to find each other.

“the Office?” Webby asks, confused.

“You know, the gay bar,” laughs Francesca, who seems to be oldest of the group, and therefore in some kind of leading role.

“Oh yeah, of course!” Webby quickly lies. She didn’t even know that Duckburg had a gay bar, even though now thinking about it, it must have several. Duckburg is a metropolis, a rich and pulsing city of innovation and long history. It is the kind of city where everything can be found, if you just look long enough.

“Well I don’t know it, as I’m not from Duckburg,” Gosalyn smoothly adds. It’s nice how she knows when Webby is feeling lost, without bringing attention to it.

“Oh sorry!” Francesca ruffled her hair bashfully. “The circles are sometimes so small, that we kind of- anyways. It was the centre of early LGBTQ activism back when people were just starting to organise for that sort of thing. Back in the fifties. I’ve been reading about it; it’s pretty interesting. Kate Hardbeak, the early activist, used to manage the place when it was being established.”

“Why is it called the Office. Isn’t that a weird name for a bar?” Webby asks, leaning against Gosalyn’s shoulder. It feels good. Being with her and learning history. Two of her favourite things wrapped together.

“Well, I read that back in the fifties there were lots of lesbians who went to accounting because they didn’t have husbands to provide for them, so the place was always filled with accountants and secretaries. There was this huge overlap in lesbian culture and the rising movement for women to seek employment instead of marriage. It was bit of an inside joke in the lesbian-culture of the time.” Francesca excitedly recited. Clearly this was a subject near and dear to her heart.

“I heard that Kate Hardbeak’s girlfriend used to bring spreadsheets from work to the place so often that Kate got pissed and said that if she insisted treating it as an office, they might as well call it an Office.” The other one of the hens, Laura, chipped in, laughing.

The dog in gothic clothes snorted. “Yeah. And I’ve heard that nowadays it’s just full of straight celebrities that want to look progressive.”

“I’ve heard that the drinks in there are so expensive that you want to retreat straight back into the closet.” Jesse, the androgynous parrot added their two cents into the conversation.

“Whatever.” Carmen rolled her eyes dramatically. “It’s not like being gay is all about hanging around in bars!”

“No, it is not! Which is exactly why we have this group!”

“But hey guys! Did you see the thing with McDuck this morning!” Laura rolled over onto her stomach on the picnic blanket, and kicked her legs in the air happily. “It was epic. _Heterosexuality wasn’t even invented when I was young_ , what a line! My mom was so mad!”

“Yeah, mine too.” Snorted Samuel. “She swore off using any McDuck products ever again.”

Webby felt her stomach drop right through the ground, and suddenly wished that she could simply dig herself into a hole and never come up again. This was exactly what she had been afraid of. Her ruining uncle Scrooge’s reputation.

“Well I’m sure that he won’t face bankruptcy just because Laura’s mom won’t be buying Tupperware from his supermarkets anymore.” Gosalyn snorted.

“It’s not funny! This is exactly what I was afraid of!!” Webby hissed.

The others looked at her oddly for a minute, before Francesca’s eyes grew wide and she ended up sputtering for a minute. “Wait you! You’re- I’ve seen you in the magazine. You’re his ward!”

Webby did an awkward shrug. She was suddenly under the scrutiny of much more sharper eyes, not unkind, but searching. Eyes that suddenly had expectations of her. Webby felt a sting of sympathy for uncle Scrooge who lived like this, just 100 times worse, every day and every moment.

“Holy fuck, McDuck’s ward is one of us. That’s WILD!”

“Did he _really_ say all of those things at the gala?”

“What’s it like, living with him?”

“I read his biography and he didn’t seem at all like someone who would have done anything sinful like kiss some male poets.”

“Don’t call it sinful.” Gosalyn said the exact same time as Webby said, “Don’t read those biographies, they’re all terrible.”

“But…But he’s Scrooge McDuck. He’s the American dream personified. He’s, you know, Scrooge McDuck.” Mike, the shy stork stumbled through his words.

“Oh come on.” Gosalyn sat up straighter, and had her inspirational face on. The one that came out when she was involved in activisms. “You think that famous people don’t have just as complicated personal histories as the rest of us? How do you know that Darkwing Duck hasn’t been casually dating his best friend for years and that now he has been thinking of proposing to him, but then he also feels that he can’t tie him down for a marriage so full of dangers and secrecy, and that the conflict between what he thinks is the right thing to do, and what he wants to do isn’t tearing him apart?”

“that, um, Gos, that’s weirdly specific.”

“Nah, it was just a random example.”

“Oh…Okay. But anyway…” Webby mulled over her words, there was something tangible forming in her thoughts, something that she thought _mattered_. A realisation that uncle Scrooge hated his biographies, because they were telling about his life to the world, _but not through his own words_. And about these kids, just like her, thinking that there was a clear division between _their folk, and other people_. About how afraid she had been, thinking that she was an anomaly in an otherwise ordered world. About the warm contentment in uncle Scrooge’s eyes as he brought out a scrapbook and let the children gather around him, telling them stories of the places he had seen, the people he had met. Webby thought about all of those things, and decided that it was time to stop watching from the side-lines and do something that she _really wanted to do._

 “Hey, you know what guys.” She clapped her hands together. She was an honorary niece of Scrooge McDuck, time to finally start sowing some reaps of it. “How would you like to all come and visit the McDuck manor some day?”

 

 

_Duckburg, 1952_

When Scrooge put the add on paper that he needed a new accountant, he was not expecting the long line of applicants that ended up waiting by his office on Monday morning. There, sitting on the uncomfortable chairs was sitting a long line of relatively young women, all of their skirts neat, but worn, hair perfectly in place, but dark bags underneath their eyes, and holding in their hands all a thick stack of papers, which asked the question why so many over-qualified applicants had suddenly arrived to the interviews.

Retreating into his personal office, he took a moment before inviting any of them in. This would have been normal during the depression, but it wasn’t the thirties anymore. People weren’t clawing all over each other to get a job; Normally Scrooge had to hunt for qualified people to work with him. (There was an unfortunate situation were the most qualified usually refused to work with half-used pencils bought on stock from the local elementary school. They said that it was beneath their dignity.)

The idea of them being Brutopian spies did flash through his head, but didn’t seem as plausible as the government propaganda might had wanted him to believe.[i] He had dealt with Brutopian agents before; they would not look as silently desperate as these ladies did.

He invites the first one in.

 

When the last one of the line is sitting in front of him, pretty, tired, and so obviously hiding something, Scrooge revisits the theory of Brutopian invasion through accountants in worn skirts. Viola Slightwing is much like the others, with good education, good work-history, and no recommendations from her last employer.

She is unmarried, and even Scrooge can see that it cannot be because no man has ever proposed. Viola has the face of an angel, the delicate built of a dancer, and smile so sweet that if she ever tried to offer Scrooge a cup of coffee he would instantly assume that it was poisoned.  

“So, you worked for the government for how long?”

“Ten years, sir.”

Scrooge looks at the birth-date and back at Miss. Slightwing, who has the fixed expression of someone who is trying to fight down a mental breakdown.

“You started working for them quite young.”

“Right after school. Even the men at the state department couldn’t dispute how gifted I was with numbers.”

“Well, how gifted are you?”

A smile flickers on her face, and a glint of confidence dances in her eyes. It looks promising.

“Try me.”

Scrooge turns her personal details paper around and scribbles a problem for her to solve in the blank side. When he slides the paper to her, Miss. Slightwing takes one look at the numbers, and instantly writes the answer down. Scrooge checks it, and then checks it again. It is correct, to every decimal.

He puts the papers down, and crosses his hands, letting his bill rest on his locked fingers.

“Let’s not dance around anymore then. Why were you fired from your last job?”

Miss. Slightwing speaks to the spot few inches right of Scrooge’s head.

“I have no connections to Brutobia.”

“Not what I was asking lass.”

“How do you know that I was fired?”

“You have no recommendations from the government office you worked before, and there are papers missing from this impressive file that you have brought to me. You are trying to hide the reason you got fired.”

The silence stretches, and Scrooge is assuredly sure in that moment that if he had asked any of the other women the same question, he would have been greeted with the same silence.   

“If that’s how it is, our ways part here. I like to know what crimes my employees have done in the past before I hire them.”

Her eyes snap from their glass-like fixedness, as she shoots up from her chair, the emotional breakdown that she had been keeping at bay for so long suddenly pouring over her.

“I have _never_ done _crimes_ in my life! I have worked and worked and kept my head down! You want to know _why_ they kicked me out! _Homosexuality_! There’s a crime for you!”[ii]

She is all ready to run out of the door, but suddenly she jolts, and turns back around on her heels, looking like the emotional equivalent of a wrung-out kitchen-towel.

“But that’s just me. Those other girls…Just…Probably….wanted… a change of pace. Not that I would know. I don’t know any of them.”

Scrooge resisted the urge to scold the girl for being such a bad liar.

“Sit back down lass. And stop hovering by the door. Your moment to make a dramatic exit passed a while ago.”

Miss. Slightwing does not stop hovering, but Scrooge will let it slide for now. The poor girl doesn’t even know that she is hired yet.

“Welcome to the McDuck industries. How do you feel about half-used pencils and using both sides of the notebook pages?”

“What?”

 

Scrooge tries to avoid spending more time than necessary in the downtown offices. The place doesn’t feel like home in the same way the bin does. In the offices, his money is not something he can touch, and enjoy. In the offices, his money is nothing more than a concept, numbers on paper. Coming in, and going out the same speed. Being invested, bought, sold, being exchanged.

He is happy to let the small army of workers in the office do the physical spending for him.

Expect that the last month has seen him in the offices much more than he wants to be. It seems that he is losing an employee every week, and while it has been relatively easy to pick new workers from the list of laid-of government workers, at this point he needs to see what the exodus is all about.

He has even bought them a box of pencil sharpeners three months ago, after complaints made about the difficulty of sharpening your pen with that one old pencil-sharpening knife (It served Scrooge just fine back in Klondike, the youth today is just spoiled.), because he is lenient boss like that.

It turns out that it is not about the economical use of office supplies. It is not even about the policy to re-purpose the used envelopes into notepapers.

“Well.” Says Viola. “Our records are possible to check if one really wants to. But really, I don’t think that they had to. Hiring single women right after the purges is not exactly subtle. And-” She shrugs her shoulders and smiles wryly, “-there are lots of new openings in government positions these days if someone wishes to find a new job.”

Scrooge _doesn’t have time for this_. He is trying to run a business empire, and here he is, having to deal with these petty-

He doesn’t get to finish his inner rant, as he is interrupted by a young man with slicked back hair, and a woman with pearl earrings, holding their resignation letters in their hands.

“Mr. McDuck, with all due respect, we feel that now that certain… immorality has been so blatantly accepted in this company, we cannot with good conscience-“

“Oh, save you breath lad! If you’re that eager to go get paid from my tax-dollars you can go, and not stand yammering there!”

The man looks at him poisonously, but doesn’t say anything, only hands in the letter and starts packing his things with slightly shaking hands.

The woman with pearl earrings doesn’t even meet Scrooge’s eyes as she thrusts the letter in his hands and escapes.

The youth these days, in Scrooge’s opinion, have no spine.

“If somebody else in here is planning to leave in the following months, I would prefer that you leave now, so you don’t waste my time later on!”

He is honestly not expecting over half of the room to stand up.

 

“I’ll fix this,” declares Miss. Slightwing with conviction. “I promise, just give us a change! Tomorrow morning, this place will be fully staffed, I swear. My- Kate has contacts, lots of contacts, we will have no trouble finding enough people to fill this place up again!”

“I miss the good old days in Klondike, when all I needed were my two hands and a pick-axe.” Mumbled her boss from the emergency pile of hundred-dollar bills, where his face was buried in.

 

The next morning there is a flock of women sitting by the desks that had emptied last night. All have their CVs in front of them, and all look professional and ready to start the work, even if for some of them this is clearly a first time both in office and wearing a professional outfit. 

“I told you. We have connections.” Miss. Slightwing says. The bags under her eyes tell Scrooge that she has most probably been up the whole night getting in contact with those connections.  

“Good job.”

“To be honest.” She answers, and her bout of honesty is most likely explained by her sleep deprivation, “I didn’t do it for you.”

 

Scrooge’s new army of Sapphic office workers never complain about the pencils, or how sometimes the office will be attacked by a monster seeking vengeance on Scrooge McDuck, or about the fact that they are not allowed to throw away the used envelopes. In light of this, Scrooge privately feels that between him and the government, he has gotten the better end of the deal. Honestly, what kind of downside could there possibly be for eager workers that would not drop of because of pregnancy, or because they got married and turned into house-wives?

 

Scrooge stared at his top accountant, who fidgeted only slightly under his stare. Considering the circumstances, this was quite extraordinary. 

Viola Slightwing, a duck of extraordinary beauty and sweet mannerisms, was currently sporting a magnificent black eye.

“So, can somebody explain to me what happened?” Scrooge demanded, with a voice that reminded everyone that time was money, and he was losing both by standing here, dealing with the situation.

“These women were arrested for major distur-“

“I wasn’t asking you.” The richest duck in the world interrupted the police officer who kept fidgeting more than the accountant currently behind the bars. This was of course quite understandable, as the accountant had had more time to get used to the McDuck ire than the police officer in question.

 Viola sighed, and exchanged glances with her girlfriend, a duck with short shorn hair and a general built of a professional wrestler. She was what people imagined when they heard the word butch.

“Disagreement with the staff of the bar.” [iii] The girlfriend of his accountant answered to Scrooge. For the life of him, he could not remember the lady’s name. He was by principle never that interested in the lives of his employees.

“When people have disagreements, they usually do not end in jail. Nor with black eyes.” Scrooge pointed out irritated, and entirely aware of his own hypocrisy.  

“Well, we are not the usual people now, aren’t we!” The girlfriend spat out, beak between the bars and looking ready to punch someone, quite possibly Scrooge. Viola made an apologetic face behind her girlfriend at her employer. She generally liked her boss, and was honestly tired by now. She had already taken one fight last night, she did not have energy for another.

“Kate please.” She said, bland and final.

So, the girlfriend’s name was Kate. Not that Scrooge particularly cared, but he filed the information away anyway.

The red coated tycoon banged his cane on the floor, and turned his no-nonsense eyes at the police officer. “I’m paying the bail for all of them, and you better work the fastest you have ever worked in your life, because I need my employees working right now!”

The officer only nodded and spluttered frantically away, papers and other miscellaneous items flying as he tried to find the proper papers under heavy pressure.

“Make no mistake, I will be deducting the amount of the bail from your pay checks.”

The officer rushed back, holding the key to the cell, and showed the papers that McDuck needed to sign in order to relocate his office staff from inside the cell to the outside.

The pissed of business tycoon scratched his name on the dotted lines, the pen almost going through the paper with the force of the signatures. The police officer on the other side of the table leaned forwards as Scrooge was finishing the last document, with the look of a man who was about to become too friendly and casual for Scrooge’s tastes. He tried to discourage the policeman with his most milk-curdling glance, but the man was not discouraged.

“So…They’re all your employees…?”

“70% of my accounting and secretary force is currently sitting in this jail, yes. Which is why I needed them back in my offices two hours ago!”

“You do know that they are...”

“Sending their boss to an early grave. Aye lad, I do.”

“I mean about the “poetry” club they have.” [iv]

Scrooge gave the man a _look_ and pushed the papers across the table to the policeman who was working much too slowly for Scrooge’s comfort. The man took the papers in his hands, but did not look at them, or make any move towards doing the job Scrooge’s tax money was used to pay him to do.

“You know the government has been advising big businesses to follow the official policy concerning-“

“Do I look like a government office to you!” Scrooge McDuck hissed out, metaphorical steam already coming from his ears. He looped the end of his cane around the dilly-dallying police officer’s neck, and brought the terrified man’s face down near his own.

“Listen here. Right now, you are going to release all the people I just paid criminally expensive bail for, and you are going to work FAST because TIME is MONEY and every minute spent here is a WASTE!”

The officer meeped and fumbled for his keys. Rubbing his neck, the man took off in a half-run to start letting the girls out of their cells.

“Thank you, kindly.” Viola thanked the man, as she stepped out of the cell, with one of her sweet smiles that men left and right had fallen in love with for years. Kate sneered in the man’s face, putting a possessive arm around her girlfriend’s small shoulder.

“And thank you, Mr. McDuck. We are sorry about all of this trouble.” Viola stopped in front of her boss, big eyes full of sincerity, and face a picture of feminine sweetness, if you ignored the blooming black eye.

“No, we are not.” Kate muttered from Viola’s side.

Scrooge ignored her. Viola Slightwing was one of the most talented mathematical minds that he had working for him, and sometimes there came the time where your employee’s skills with numbers outweighed their horrible taste in women.

“Well don’t just stand there, spouting apologies! We have work to do! What do I pay you for!”

The flock of women divided neatly into two flocks after that. To the McDuck employees, who rushed after their seething boss currently power marching his way out of the police-station. The rest of the enthusiastic admirers of Greek poetesses made themselves scarce, not wanting to remind the businessman that they did not actually work for him, in fear of the famous penny-pincher taking back his bail for them and throwing them back into jail. 

 

Back in the office, Viola leafed through the stack of papers gathered on her desk, when her boss appeared by his side, and pushed a pack of ice into her face.

“Hold still.” He grumbled, as Viola startled and squawked at the sudden cold feeling on her face.

“Let me take a look at that.” The pack of ice was removed from her face, and her chair was spun around so that her boss could easily lean close and inspect her right eye up close. “Whoever took a swing at you did not pack much. That’ll heal in few days.”

“Oh. Are you sure?” Viola stammered awkwardly. This was so outside her comfort zone that she was practically floating in the atmosphere.

“Lass, I’ve been punched in the face more times than you’ve had hot meals.”  His eyes took concerningly nostalgic gleam as he sighed “Oh Klondike…” with fondness to himself. Shaking himself from his trip down the memory lane, her boss settled himself to sit on Viola’s desk.

“So, what exactly did happen last night.” He passed the bag of ice to Viola, and gestured for her to push it against her eye.

Viola complied, noticing for her joy that the ice did feel good against her injury.

“I… It just got out of hand so quickly.” She blushed. “The bartender told us that we had to leave, but we were just sitting there, and then Kate…Well Kate doesn’t have the greatest temper. And honestly, we have been kicked out from so many places already that somehow it just seemed more important than it actually was, I guess?” She trailed of not really knowing how to explain their irresponsible behaviour. She wasn’t exactly sure herself what had happened. The bartender had told them to leave, Kate had argued against it, there had been a lot of yelling, and then exploding pain as Viola had felt a fist connect with her face. Kate had of course gone berserk, the rest of the customers had also gotten involved, the women of the club had seen an opportunity to vent all of their pent-up frustrations, and suddenly it had been a free for all brawl.

Viola grimaced under the unimpressed stare of her boss. “Yeah, we probably should have just stayed at my home.” She joked feebly.

“Hmm. You know that I can’t afford another morning like this. I’m running a business imperium from here, I need to know that my people actually come to work every morning!”

“Well, it ain’t us who want to be dragged away by the police every time we show our face somewhere!” Declared Vera, slamming a binder next to Scrooge. Her afro looked particularly wonky, seeing that there were big patches of hair missing from it. “The cotton factories in Virginia need their budget re-evaluated.”

Scrooge snatched the binder into his hands and let his eyes sweep over the numbers. “No, I guess you are right. You ladies _didn’t_ walk in there looking to start a fight.” He coughed a little, self-consciously. “Not that you should, of course. It’s horrible business, throwing men into tables and through the windows and all that.”

“We didn’t throw anyone anywhere.” Viola piped nervously.

“Really? You should have. It’s easier than it looks, once you get a proper momentum going.”

The binder concerning cotton factories in Virginia was thrown back to Vera, and the head of the McDuck empire hopped back to the floor, snatching up his cane from where it lay against the table.

“Say, Miss. Slightwing, how often do you think that you and your ruder half would go out if you knew you wouldn’t end up kicked out by the owner of the place?”

“I…Pretty often I would think.” Viola and Vera exchanged confused glances.

“I think that there would be a lot of us who would go out more if it wasn’t such an ordeal every time.” Vera added.

“Well, you catch up on your work here, and that better happen quickly!” Scrooge made a sweep with his cane indicating everyone. “I will be back in an hour, and by then I expect this place to be running in full speed!”

There were furious nods and “Yes sirs” and everyone started running around looking for the right files and using both hands to go through the papers on their desks. It was once again the familiar controlled chaos of the McDuck offices.

Scrooge however, headed for the city and bought himself a bar.

 

If they hope that no-one will notice the amount of unmarried women scrunching numbers and answering phones at the McDuck offices, especially after the…incident, they hope in vain. The government notes, and the ambitious journalists note, and the unholy matrimony of government paranoia and newspapers’ hunger for scandals gives birth to the article.

“So, do you think that Mr. McDuck has seen it.”

“How could he have not!”

“Oh god, this is awful.”

“C’mon, pull yourself together. This is not even the worst that has been said of us.”

“Sure, of us, but what about Mr. McDuck.”

“Oh it’s just ridiculous. Anyone with any sense can see it.”

“And you think that an average reader-“

“It doesn’t even make any sense! Like he would even let us get close to his actual vault! Nevermind let anyone do- well- THAT-!”

“I still don’t entirely understand how the Brutopians are supposed to fit into all this-[v]

Purposeful steps on the hallway send all of the girls scrambling for their desks and hiding the offending newspaper from sight. When their boss marches through the door, the whole office is a picture of professionalism.

“Miss. Slightwing!”

The blonde snaps to attention, mostly because of the cane already hooked onto her elbow. Her boss doesn’t even break stride as he snatches his accountant with him. “Come, you are needed at the bin.”

“Of Course, Mr. McDuck.”  

The red-coated tycoon collects an armful of papers, and then passes another armful to Viola. She has a feeling that she won’t be making it to that date night that she had planned with Kate tonight.

“Try to keep the offices standing without Miss. Slightwing for the night. Remember that the audit for that new subsidiary is our most pressing issue right now! So no dilly-dallying and no distractions. Vera! Stop trying to hide that newspaper under the binders and start working!”

“So you’ve read it.” Viola stuttered out, still being dragged by the cane.

“I am forced to endure the rest of the newspaper if I want to get the business section.”

“So…Do you think that-“

“Well, I trust that you are limiting your orgies to the lunch break and not wasting my paid time.”

Viola could almost see the blink-and-you-miss-it smile on the trillionaire’s face, as he pushed both of them to the backseat of the car, the chauffeur already speeding away.

Sighing away the tension that had been building on her body, Viola melted against her seat, carefully setting the pile of papers on her hands to the space next to her.

“Kate won’t be happy that I’m spending another long night at the bin.”

“Your taste in women is abysmal. Kate Hardbeak is both a ruffian and a menace that does not listen to common sense and makes audacious claims concerning the rent of her new bar.”

“Funny how she says the exactly same thing about you.”

Scrooge sent her a look that could have curdled milk.

“I guess you are going to have negotiations about the rent again soon?” It was a rhetorical question. Her partner and her boss had a curious unspoken arrangement going where whenever other would become stressed or frustrated enough, they would show up to “negotiate” their business arrangement by screaming on each other’s faces for half an hour straight. Viola would have been concerned, but they both seemed happier afterwards, so who was she to come between such a beneficial relationship.

“Well if your worse half _insists_ on being difficult on purpose.”

Viola hid her smile behind her hand and leaned against the window, watching as the city blurred past them.

 

Two years later, Viola is sitting alone at the money bin, staring at the wilting bunch of flowers sitting at her desk. It was well past midnight and the whole building was abandoned except for her and the guards outside.

Drumming an absent rhythm to the wood of her desk, she wondered if she would be up to the looming task ahead of her. Suddenly it seemed like the weight of the world’s greatest financial empire didn’t seem as much compared to what the future might hold.

The echoing steps told her that the owner of the place had finally arrived. As she had expected.

Scrooge walked through the doors looking like he had been dragged through a blender few times, patches of feathers missing from his plumage, arm bandaged, and clothes torn and ragged. He looked like he had had splendid time examining the diamond mine in Siberia.

“Miss. Slightwing! Why are you still here?”

“I needed to talk to you.”

“What? Why?! Are my industries still running?! Has the economy crashed?! Are my stocks-?!”

“No, no. Business are fine. I wouldn’t let that happen to you.”

Her boss sighed in relief, easing his grip on the small chest full of diamonds that he had with him. “You are a money-saver lass, I don’t say it often, but you are.”

“I think that the saying is: Life-saver.”

“bah, anyone can be a life-saver, saving money takes more skill.”

“Thank you Mr. McDuck, but well…I have a personal request to make.”

The two ducks had walked to the vault, Scrooge opening the heavy door and flicking the lights on, illuminating the mountains of cash below

“A personal request.” There was suspicion in the voice.

“Indeed.” Leaning against a railing, and trying to not get vertigo glancing down at the cold hard cash that would kill her on instant were she to fall, Viola tried to think where to start explaining. 

“I have a niece, Emily, she’s six years old. She- well she is now an orphan. It, well- I hadn’t talked to my sister for years but-“ The Scottish trillionaire looked down, his momentarily flinch gone unnoticed by Viola who was staring fixedly at the piles of money.  “But now I am the only family Emily has left. The Quackfaster family from her father’s side is all gone, so it’s either me or a foster home.”

“And why wouldn’t it be you?”

“You know why.”

Setting the small chest on the floor of the diving-ledge, Scrooge sat on top of it, crossing his arms. “And how do I fit into all of this?”

“I need someone respectable to vouch for me. That I’m not a- a deviant. That I’m normal and safe and can take my niece in.”

“Of course.” Scrooge’s voice came out less harsh than usual in the midnight stillness of the vault. “But what about Kate, isn’t that going to-“

“We’ll work it out. I’ll rent another apartment for myself so it isn’t as obvious. I’ll obviously have to stop hanging around in the Office so much-“

“You people really need to change that name, it gets confusing really fast.”

“It’s a genius name, but anyways, we will work it out. My niece is now the priority.”

Something almost like sadness crept into the gaze of the richest man in the world, and Viola tried to not think about it too much.

“I will write you yer letter, you are after all the most competent person of my staff by far. You will make a great aunt.”

“Thank you, Mr. McDuck. For, well- everything.” Viola hesitated a moment, watching her boss getting up and turning his back on her, clearly readying for a swim. “I really appreciate it. And- well, you know. You would make a pretty good uncle yourself.”

Scrooge McDuck dived down, not acknowledging his accountant’s words in anyway. Said accountant turned around and walked away, leaving behind her the clinking of coins, preparing to finally go home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i] Brutopia being the fictional country created by Barks to play the role of a communist enemy nation in the original comics. I assume that the red scare in duckverse therefore revolves around the fear of Brutopians. 
> 
> [ii] In the 1950s and 60s, security within the U.S. government, including the State Department, was on high alert for internal risks, particularly Communists and what were considered to be sexual deviants—homosexuals and promiscuous individuals. Investigating homosexuality became a core function of the Department’s Office of Security, which ferreted out more people for homosexuality than for being a Communist.
> 
> https://adst.org/2015/09/the-lavender-scare-homosexuals-at-the-state-department/
> 
>  
> 
> [iii] “Migrations to cities following World War II allowed gay communities to form in urban centers. Gay bars became more common, and the sense of gay identity strengthened during the 1950s. Bars allowed women to explore sexuality at a slower pace, to go to bars and slowly explore same-sex attraction. They, however exposed lesbian women to homophobic violence. Many lesbians avoided bars for this reason. Fear of being exposed to coworkers and dominant society also deterred many lesbians from attending bars.”
> 
> http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/lesbians-20th-century/1950s
> 
>  
> 
> [iv] A reference to Daughters of Bilitis, an early lesbian organization, named so because "If anyone asked us, we could always say we belong to a poetry club”
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_Bilitis
> 
>  
> 
> [v] Incident modelled after a real-life article written to raise hysteria concerning lesbians working in government offices.
> 
>  “The article described an example of 40-50 lesbians with government jobs who took part in sex orgies, which were filmed by foreign communists who blackmailed the women into giving them secret documents. There was no indication that this was a legitimate example; rather it seemed to be a hypothetical example.”
> 
> http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/pdfs/Toops-LavenderScareVol5.pdf


	5. Chapter 5

The core of the LGBTQ youth group of Duckburg shuffled nervously in front of the manor gates. They were a unified front with their reluctance to press the buzzer and kept giving each other glances in hopes that it wasn’t them who would have to speak.

“oh for the- We were invited after all. What’s the worst that could happen!” Francesca rolled her eyes and pushed her way to the buzzer. As the founder and manager of the group, and the oldest member at the age of seventeen, the responsibility was hers.

Holding their breath, the children listened as a crisp voice of a British lady answered.

“Yes hello,” Francesca leaned down close to the mic. “We are- we were invited by Webigail Vanderquak…”

“Ah yes.” The accent stayed, but some of the crispiness melted away from the voice on the other side of the microphone. “The LGBTQ youth. Webby has been very excited to have you visit. Please wait just a moment, I will send Launchpad down to pick you up.”

“Oh no, that is not necessary at all! We can just walk-“

“It is a long climb. Stay put.” The British voice concluded whit what sounded vaguely like an order.

The LGBTQ youth group stayed put. Looking up at Kilimotor Hill, they were glad to be spared the walk, but the nervousness in their more anxious prone members (Mike) was not helped by the wait. Sensing the mood, Francesca put her brave face on. “Well, isn’t this exiting! There are not many who can say that they have visited the McDuck mansion!”

“I’m scared.” Muttered Mike. The stork had spent last night on the internet reading more and more alarming tales surrounding the mansion and the eccentric duck that owned it. The place was practically a fortress, if not as visibly so as the bin. He couldn’t help but think that once they were in, they would be trapped in.

“Kate Hardbeak would not be scared.” Francesca said.

“Pretty sure Kate Hardbeak never visited the McDuck mansion.” Mike muttered so low that Francesca couldn’t hear.

(This assumption was factually false. Kate Hardbeak had in fact visited the McDuck mansion several times, always uninvited. There had never been an office door strong enough that Kate Hardbeak couldn’t kick it in.) 

The gates finally opened, and a black limousine sped downhill with alarming speed, finally stopping in a dust-cloud by the gates.

“Hey kids! I’m Launchpad, your driver for the day, please get in and make yourself at home!”

They have not expected the driver coming to pick them up to be like this. They are not exactly sure what they were expecting, but not the cheerful pelican in a faded leather-jacket.

“Cool. I’ve never been in a Limo!” Laura, a young hen with cheerful disposition, chirps and bounces forwards.

“Great! I love making folks dreams come true! Do you want to ride the shotgun?”

Laura agrees excitedly and hops on the offered shotgun seat, bouncing on her seat a little. “This is so soft!”

“It is, isn’t it?!” The chauffeur and Laura are quickly becoming best friends as the rest scramble to the seats at the back. Francesca is the last one to get in, her doubts starting to melt listening to the eager chatter of Laura and the chauffeur.

Her doubts come back with vengeance, as the car starts moving, picking up speed and then not stopping picking up speed. The narrow road and the sharp turns (literally) fly underneath the wheels as the driver speeds through the road, making everyone hold onto their seatbelts.

Laura at the front is laughing and has her hands in up in the air.

Finally, the car barrels to the end of the road stopped not only by the driver but also by the manor steps that the car bumps into. The kids that step out of the vehicle look ruffled and slightly glassy eyes. Mike is holding onto his partner, Jesse’s, hand with his dear life.

At the top of said stairs, stood Webby, rocking back and forth on her toes, as pink and bubbly as they remembered.

“Aaah, this going to be great! There are so many cool things to show you guys!”

“Not before security, dear.” The British voice from the microphone makes an appearance as an older woman who looks like she could wrestle bears and win. It is an impressive look for someone wearing an apron.

The woman is holding a device that none of them can recognise and points it at them. “Don’t worry. This is just a precaution to make sure that none of you are in hold of magical artefacts, possessed, or cursed. We go through this with everyone.”

A flash of light made all of their fingertips tingle, but did nothing else, and they were declared to be clean and ushered inside by a very eager Webby.

The lobby truly was magnificent. There were oil paintings and ancient artefacts and few diamonds carelessly tossed into a fruit-bowl.

There are also scratches and torch-marks and all kind of knick-knacks laying around. The lobby is a mitch-match of glorious and the mundane.

There is a biography burning in the fireplace, which mantel is adorned with photographs; Some old, 19th century variety with faded faces and stern countenances, some new, digital, colourful explosions that have caught its objects mid-movement. It is not hard to deduct that these are McDuck’s family.

“Not very favourably received?” Aaliyah noted by the fire-place, looking at the book slowly turning into charcoal.

“well, he also wanted to save firewood, you know.” Webby answered, gesturing for her quests to follow.

They made it to the kitchen, which was small and homey and took all of them by a surprise. As opulent as the mansion looked to the outside world, it turned out to be very economically used. As they were told, electricity was connected to only a dozen rooms at all and heating was available only in the rooms where it was absolute necessity. The rooms that were in constant use looked much like any other suburban rooms, assuming that said suburban owner was also financially struggling.

Apparently, Scrooge McDuck was a firm believer that if a kitchen chair could be fixed with duct tape, it did not need replacing. There was also drying rack for used teabags on the corner, which were all neatly labelled.

“That’s a joke, right?” Samuel asked, pointing at the little teabags hanging from the rack.

“Nope. It is not.” Came the voice of Louie, who had appeared with his brothers to the kitchen. “And yes, it is just as disgusting as you are imagining it.”

Samuel was not the only one to make a face.

Gosalyn was the last one to join them, hopping to sit on the kitchen counter, her red hair gathered on a messy bun. “Are we going to do this or what?”

“Do what?” Laura asked from inside the kitchen cabinet, intent on finding out what the richest man in the world ate. The answer turned out to be whatever was plain and cheap. It was all very anticlimactic.

“Corner uncle Scrooge into giving all the dirty details about his wild youth.” Dewey answered, smirking.

Francesca frowned, her posture going stiffer as she gave Dewey a sharp look. The boy in blue winced. He hadn’t meant it like that, but words were not his best suite.

“Mr. McDuck’s personal affairs are hardly any of our right to pester him about.”

“It’s not like that.” Webby assured the older girl. “It’s like…well.” She looked at Gosalyn for guidance, but Gosalyn was stubbornly picking on the feathers on her hand and was leaving Webby to find her own words.

“We aren’t going to pry, this isn’t some mission to snoop. We would be just asking. I think he might like that, being asked for a change.”

“But still,” Francesca pointed out kindly, “we are complete strangers to him. I’m not sure that _we_ should be here.”

“I think we really shouldn’t.” piped Mike. Jesse draped themselves over his shoulders like an overprotective blanket.

“grow a spine Mike, I’m not leaving before I get to touch something really expensive.” Laura cheerfully added from the pantry and high-fived Carmen who was peeking in behind her.

 “Get out of the pantry, you are being rude.” Francesca commanded, and the two girls obeyed, if hesitantly.

“No. I do think that you should be here.” Webby picked on her sleeve. In a way she was using them. Uncle Scrooge would never manage to make an official statement. All PR that he got wrangled into always turned out to be such a disaster that it almost looped back into something sympathetic, if you squinted and tilted your head. But grapevine was where people’s opinions were formed and cutting out the middle man known as media could only make things better. Uncle Scrooge’s board could complain about his public image as much as they wanted, Webby was way ahead of them.

She also remembered her own fear and felt that the other LGBTQ Duckburgians should be given the same chance as her to not only to realise that they aren’t alone and outliers in Duckburg, they aren’t alone and outliers in history either.  

“I wouldn’t want to impose upon him.” Aaliyah’s voice cut Webby from her tangled thoughts. She didn’t sound intimated, but she did sound like she was choosing her words carefully.

Gosalyn grinned and abandoned her preening. “Nah. He won’t say it out loud, but he likes to be imposed upon, if it means that he can yammer about his past.”

The other kids who lived in the manor shrugged and made assenting noises. “yeah, he’s a nostalgic softie really.”

 

In his office, Scrooge McDuck was still unaware of the youth plotting to impose upon him. He was busy reading a report one of his newer managers had written to him about the flighty millennials and their resistance towards traditional marketing, (and don’t even start about the incomprehensible generation Z who have gone entirely missing). At the same time, he was thinking of renewable energy markets in Asia and planning a draft for the business proposal in Europe. His mind was used to multitasking.

Technically, he was supposed to keep his work in the bin but trying to separate his work from his home had been a doomed mission from the start, so the drawing room had morphed into an office almost a week from him initially moving into the mansion.

There was also a letter on his desk from his board, that he had skimmed over and then not read. He was not in the mood for reflecting upon his PR or how he had to try and control the mess that his little outburst at the gala had caused.

He ignored it.

There was a knock on his door and then a familiar green hoodie poked through.

“Hey uncle Scrooge, Webby’s friends and us are having a sleepover and so feel free to tell us if we are being too loud, also they are all huge fans of that new autobiography and also we are totally going to be reading chapters of it and talking about how your accent is soo…English. Definitely don’t come and correct us. We are in the living room!”

The green hoodie disappeared, as did the duck inside of it. The knowledge that he is being played does not stop the instinct to go after the boy and make him wash his mouth for the comment about England. He knows he is being very crudely manipulated, but he does not know for what, and the curiosity is too much for him to stay working.

He puts the papers down and follows the lad.

 

His living room has been invaded by children. There are the usual suspects, his family, and then there are several others, colourful and young. It would seem that the incomprehensible generation Z has not gone missing after all. They are here, in his living room. Somebody should alert his managers.

“Mr.McDuck!” Somebody gasps, and then he is under the focus of every eye in the room. The eyes are sitting on pillows and lounging on sofas and leaning on each other. They look a unit, a group. He is reminded of his secretaries in the fifties and the bars in Schöneberg in the dawn of the 20th century. Last time he had felt like a part of such unit was in American plains, surrounded by camaraderie. Then he had grown into a singular unit, an army of one.

“Uncle Scrooge!” chirps his niece and bounces from the sofa. “Join us!”

The polite refusal is already on his tongue, no children want adults to be part of their personal sleepovers, but Louie’s smug smirk stops him. He has been tricked (very badly) here and he still doesn’t know why.

“All right kids. What is this?”

“We just wanted to talk to you. About history.” Said Huey, wringing his hands nervously.

“Tell us about your boyfriend.” Said Dewey. Next to him, Huey gave his brother a horrified look and the hit him with a pillow.

At least half of the new kids looked even more horrified than Huey, and a young stork half hiding behind a parrot whimpered.

The oldest of the new arrivals tucked nervously a strip of blue hair behind her ear, but her voice had no hint of anything but calm politeness. “I’m sorry Mr. McDuck, we would never want to pry on your personal-“

“Speak for yourself! How has no one known that you and Miguel Pis-“

“Gosalyn!”

“Okay! Quiet, all of you!” Scrooge stopped the voices before they could start a real argument.

The children were looking at him and his first instinct was to snap at them to scatter, that they were not family, that they had no business even being here, but he did not. His years with the children had helped to heal the worst of the wounds that he had tried to protect with anger.

And besides, this was not entirely about himself anymore. Most of the things he did were not entirely about himself anymore, it was the price to pay (and how he hated all prices, including this one) for his place in the world, the loss of yourself in a way. People like him were not just people, they were symbols. They were there to be consumed by the public (and can he really complain, after making the world consume what he has to offer, if he is a little bit consumed back). They are judged and weighed.

Scrooge can’t tell these children to scatter. He will regret it and the world will eventually take their cue on his actions, gleefully telling the children before him to scatter wherever they go, and the children will learn to scatter without a complaint.  

Relaxing his pose and smiling a little he takes a step into the room. “I’m not going to tell you about any of my boyfriends, they are my business-.”

(“Any!? As in more than one!?” Dewey’s beak is grabbed and forced shut by Huey.)

“-But I will be glad to tell you about some of my travels. And the people I met during them.”

Because in the end it is not all about him. He might have a right for his privacy, but there are others held in his silence, people who deserve to be remembered, have their stories known. Fanny in Glasgow, how she was raised by her sister and her female lover; the cowboys on the plains, learning to use a lasso from a couple of confirmed bachelors, the sparkles and sequins in Schöneberg, Adele sending him fiscal year reports with a little heart drawn in the margins, Viola keeping a picture of Kate on her desk as she worked, and others, countless others.

 

_Walking with Fanny in Glasgow near Nelson’s monument **[i]**, seeing a man trying to run and pull his pants up at the same time. “Ah’ll give you a penny if ye tell the copper ah went that way!” _

_“For a shilling, I’ll give yeh the address of the Molly House near mah house!”_

_The man threw them two shillings and the kids rattled of the address. They lurked around the monument often during the summer when the nights stayed warm._

 

_Miguel tying a red sash around his waist, “you sure you want to be a girl for the evening?” Him flicking the rooster’s hat, “The ladies of the evening are treated for by their partners, you know that I will take full advantage.” He had laughed._

_“You are lucky you are so pretty, my wallet doesn’t open this easily just for anyone.” Migs had joked back, grapping him by the waist and spinning them around. The two teenagers had rushed into the old ballroom that had been dusted and reclaimed from the ghost-town just for tonight by a group of trail-hands from several different ranches._

_The old tradition of having miner’s balls had been kept going by those who had been part of them during the California gold rush. Half the boys taking the place of women for the evening, so the dances would work, had colourful scarves tied around their waist._

_As the night goes on, Migs teaches Scrooge how to dance and keeps buying him drinks from the old brewer who knows that making the trip here in the middle of nowhere once a year is worth it. By the end of it they have practiced both dancing and kissing enough to be breathless and fall asleep curled next to each other under the night sky. **[ii]**  _

 

_Sleeping in the small room with the soot-covered workers of the ship, seeing the tight knuckles and the worried frown of the goose reading a newspaper that he had purchased from shore. The headline is dominated by the Wilde trials, and it does not take a genius to connect the dots between the headline and the goose looking worried. He almost wants to say something, but he has no idea what, so he doesn’t. **[iii]** _

 

_Virginia Wolf **[iv]** smoking a cigarette on a sofa in London hotel lobby, leaning towards Scrooge who was trying to read a newspaper. “you know that she loves you?” _

_“I thought that she was your lover.” He stared at the words on the paper. They refused to make an impression in his mind. Virginia’s presence was too much for the poor words to compete._

_She had given him a piteous look. “Of course I am her_ lover now _. But she_ loves _you. Present tense and future implied, it is all very horrible really.”_

_“You are imagining things.”_

_“well of course, I am writer, it is what I do. You two would make the kind of story I would hate, immortals in love, how terribly romantic. Don’t worry, you will get her back when we have used each other up.”_

_Virginia had gotten up and went to her lover (now), and Goldie had given him a look across the lobby that Scrooge hadn’t been able to decipher, and he had been seething with jealousy._

_“There have been riots in Stonewall-“, **[v]** the man rants in Scrooge's office while he can clearly see Viola hiding a smile behind her hand. He sends his accountant a look that is meant to inspire stern professionalism, but somehow she ends up winking at him and he ends up fighting a smile himself. _

_“-And! Are you listening Mr. McDuck?”_

_“Of course! You have my undivided attention.”_

_Viola smirks again from behind the man’s back and Scrooge tries to look like he is not encouraging her._

 

They were all gone, and he was here, to speak for them.

“maybe I should get some of my scrapbooks.”

“Way ahead of you!” Gosalyn Mallard laughed and pulled an old wooden chest from behind the sofa. Scrooge looks at the chest and knows that these children have been planning to corner him for a while now. Opening the chest, he finds a little note on top of books, folders and other assembled papers. It is written in the familiar hand of Emily Quackfaster.

_Mom and mamma would be happy that you are doing this._

Slipping the note in his pocket, Scrooge takes the first folder, and opens it at random. The paper that greets him is an entirely innocuous and boring looking document, a fiscal year report with a small heart drawn in the margins.

“It was in the first decade of the 20th century, and I was in Berlin-“

The children listen, keenly, drinking the words in. The oldest one is making notes on a small black book, the seagull with a hijab is sketching quick impressions with her pencil, trying to catch the images that Scrooge is painting on their minds with his words; the more nervous teenagers have slowly relaxed and even Mike is now leaning forwards in excitement. Leaning against Scrooge’s leg, Webby is practically humming with happiness.

 

 

_Duckburg, 2002_

The small table lamp is the only light in the dark office, where one small duck sits hunched over reports of the last business quarter. Running a business empire takes time, and for the last nineteen years or so, he has been pressed for it.

Of course, he could not be happier to be stolen all that time. The twins are a hurricane, but a very well loved one.

Speaking of which, the otherwise silent Saturday-night is interrupted by voices of stumbling feet and hushed giggles. Both voices are male, and while the other is familiar the other is not.

Scrooge abandons the quarter-numbers, and creeps much more successfully into the hall.

There is an unmistakable note of alcohol in the sound of his nephew’s laughter, (Don’t worry, no one’s awake!) as he confidently guides his guest through the dark halls, knocking a vase on his way. (Polynesian pearls scatter to the floor)

 He is answered by excited Spanish.

A part of Scrooge knows that he should just let it be, that his children were no longer children, that it was none of his business. (but he was used to all business being his business.)

His protective instinct however finds a perfect excuse as he sees the end of a red tail and hems of a sailor-shirt disappear into what is decidedly not Donald’s room.

The twins were close, but he was still sure that Della would not appreciate her room being invaded for this, especially if she was to come back home soon. (Speaking of, where was she?)

Yanking the door open, before the pair will have time to make themselves comfortable, Scrooge is thrown back in time to long, long ago; to a time of campfires and cattle and open night-sky.

The rooster straddling Donald is almost a perfect image of Migs; with easy laughter, sly smile and kisses that had held the tastes of the prairie.

Donald screams, the rooster-that-is-not-Miguel stares at him like a deer caught in headlights. Scrooge comes back from the past and feels acutely like an intruder.

“Ye do know, that ye are in Della’s room?”

Donald swivels his head around and articulately says: “Fuck”. His speech impediment has never stopped him from clearly pronouncing that particular word.

Scrooge passes over the reprimand of his nephew’s language, and instead focuses on the much bigger issue he is noticing.

“Were ye planning on sex without protection?”

Donald makes a strangled noise and the rooster has crawled quickly away from his lap and is eyeing the window with eyes that assess how much it would hurt if he jumped.

“Donnae gltxb me nephew, this is a serious issue!”

“I think I should just go…” The rooster says hopefully and is instantly grabbed in a steel-vice grip by Donald, hissing: “Don’t you dare leave me alone in this situation!”

The young rooster’s tentative escape is halted by a pointed stare by Scrooge, who crosses his arms and lifts one eyebrow. The other boy sits neatly at the edge of the bed, next to Donald, and fiddles with his thumbs.

“Ye know, when I was young-!”

“For God’s Sake!” Donald buried his face in his hands.

“-Syphilis was a real issue! Ye youngins have no idea how lucky ye are to have cheap condoms in every store![vi] If ye had seen some of the infected faces-“ [vii]

“Stop talking about syphilis in front of my boyfriend!” Donald wailed, which earned him no sympathy from his uncle who was very vividly recalling what an untreated (and in most cases treated, as the treatment had mostly been mercury) STD in his youth had looked like.

“Boyfriend…?” The rooster blinked

Donald went still and then started squirming. “I mean, if you want to, I didn’t mean to- I mean-“, the rambling that was turning more difficult to understand by the word was halted when the rooster grabbed Donald’s hand.

The small smile and the brown eyes were so familiar that Scrooge couldn’t help but blurt out: “Are ye related to Miguel Pistoles?”

The brown eyes blinked now at him and there was a moment as both boys tried to wrap their brains around the quickly changed subject of the conversation.

“Yes… A descendant. Why?”

“He was an old friend, that’s all. Ye look like him.”

Donald gave his uncle a suspicious look and Scrooge felt like he might have to sacrifice some of his tightly guarded facts about his personal life to gain some common ground with his nephew who looked like he was planning to disregard everything Scrooge was going to say just out of principle.

“He was the first boy I ever kissed. Back in my cowboy days.”

“Boy you ever kissed…” Donald echoed, trying to get a grasp of the idea.

“yes. So, I am not just trying to make yer life difficult, I mean it about the protection. Miguel Pistoles never went anywhere without a rubber.”

Donald’s friend made a disgusted face of a teenager that had just found out way too much information about his relative. Donald made a disgusted face of a teenager who was not ready to think about how his uncle would know about anyone’s condom-carrying habits.

“Oh, fer crying out- Stop making that face, both of ye! Yer adults- If ye-“ His speech is interrupted by his brand new flip-phone ringing. Snatching it up, he looks at the caller ID and frowns.

Holding one finger up for the boys, he answers and quickly the frown deepens. The person on the other side of the line can barely be heard over the music in the background, but the message manages to come through.

Snapping his phone shut, he looks at the boys before him, now with posture that Donald recognises as his uncle’s alert stance. “When was the last time ye saw Della?”

“Ah- We left together, but then we lost her at the club…” Donald confesses, feeling suddenly both ashamed and worried.

“Alright, that’s- Don’t worry, I’ll handle this.” Scrooge waves his nephews worries away. He does recognise that it is not Donald’s job to be the guardian of his sister, no matter how Donald might feel about it.     

“Ye kids-“ Scrooge realises that he does not have condoms anywhere in the house, which he also realises is a major failing from a guardian of two nineteen-years-olds. So, he ends up making a vague gesture with his hand. “-Don’t do anything stupid. Think about syphilis.”

He can hear Donald’s groan behind him and the rooster’s voice saying: “this is not what I imagined meeting the richest duck in the world would be like-“, as he rushes to gather his coat and Duckworth’s car-keys.

 

It is one AM and the crisp autumn wind blows through Duckburg’s mostly empty streets, carrying faint sounds of fast beating music. Oncoming winter has driven most of Duckburg’s night-life inside, making everyone hurry their steps on their way either to or from home. There is a gaggle of drunk girls stumbling on their heels, finding out why you always take a jacket with you when leaving out for the night. Few lonely wanderers are shuffling presumably towards their homes, disappointed and cold. At least one couple is hurrying across the street like their tails were on fire, trying to kiss and walk at the same time, failing at both.

Near the harbour, what some call the dangerous and what some call the bohemian area of Duckburg a small brick building with a big neon sign declaring it to be “The Office” is seeing a steady stream of people pushing in and pushing out. In pairs, alone, in groups. There is a feeling in the air that this is a place to be tonight.

The bouncer halts one of the ducks striding in like they own the place, while suspiciously hiding most of his face behind an upturned jacket. After the face lifts up and gives the bouncer a sardonic grin (“Pretty sure I’m old enough to enter, lad.”) the bouncer jolts back and tries to stammer something, maybe an apology, but the duck-who-walks-in-like-he-owns-the-place has already pushed inside.

Inside the air is humid, and the music is blasting loud. The building has had quite few of its original walls knocked down to make room for extensions, since its humble beginnings fifty years ago, but the narrow stairs leading down are original, creaky, flavour. The walls on either side are covered in posters advertising drag-balls and lesbian mixers.

At the bottom of the stairs there is still the original lobby, but beyond that the space is entirely alien. The bar is shiny and the bottles behind it are from all over the world. The floor goes on forever, all open spaces and discoballs hanging from the ceiling meant to give the place a ‘retro’ feeling, but in the eyes of Scrooge look alienly futuristic.

People don’t pay him any mind, as he slides through the crowds. They are too busy hollering and clapping at the drag queen performing at the stage, six-inch heels drumming a pistol sharp melody underneath the spotlight. On the walls, there are framed photographs displaying the history of the building. Kate Hardbeak holding a banner and yelling in a protest-rally. Duckburg’s first drag-ball. Group-photo of Duckburg’s ladies “Greek poetry” club. In the picture Viola and Vera and Kate and everybody else are young and smiling and very, very alive.

Seeing them smiling and hands around each other’s shoulders makes Scrooge regret that he never visited during the fifties. Then it never even crossed his mind, as he was always too busy, and making friends with his employees had seemed like a taboo. Now it seems like a loss.

Shaking the melancholy off his shoulder like rain-water, Scrooge continued looking for the librarian that was still well and kicking and had called him here. Keeping near the wall, he circled behind the cheering crowd and tried to spot the familiar spiked hair.

As he kept looking around, he completely missed the fox in six-inch-heels and a sparkly dress descending down the stairs at the end of the stage, relinquishing her place for the next performer. The fox took one look at Scrooge McDuck in front of him and tripped on her own heels.

Scrooge caught the tumble of sparkles with a bushy tail with pure instinct.

“Steady there lass!”

“Eeep.”

Lifting the half-paralyzed fox back on her heels, Scrooge only noticed as he was doing it, that he was straightening her feather boa and was brushing the shoulders of her dress. Caring after the twins had given him entirely new mothering reflexes.

“Mr.McDuck I- I-“

“There you are!” the fox, who looked fleetingly familiar, was interrupted on her stammering by Emily Quackfaster whose dramatic eyeliner had smudged and who all around looked like she had had a stressful night. “I’ve been looking all over- Oh hello Champagna. Or is it Eric outside of stage?”

Champagna-or-Eric let out another squeak. “Miss. Quackfaster- Isn’t that-“

“yes, yes.” Emily patted the fox quickly on the arm. “you see-“ She addressed her words towards Scrooge, “Eric is one of our new interns at the bin, he’s still a bit scared of superiors.”

“Oh I see. Glad to have you on the team. Careful with the heels, don’t twist a leg lad- lass!”

Champagna-or-Eric was left behind as the archivist of the bin dragged Scrooge McDuck through the pulsing lights and the dancing bodies of the bar and the richest duck in the world complied to be led. Heading quickly to get a drink and join the fellow drag-queens, Champagna decided that this would be Eric’s problem to freak out on Monday morning.

“Where is she?” Scrooge asked hurriedly, following behind his archivist, a steady beat of worry that had accompanied him from the moment he got the call from Emily now picking up speed.

“In the bathroom. She is not feeling well.” Emily pushed through a door into a nondescript linoleum bathroom, where someone had lost their red shoe underneath a sink and the air smelled heavily of hair-spray.

At last cubicle, a young, just past adulthood, duck with blue glitter on her hair and a pale blue dress, was violently throwing up in the toilet.

“Della?”

“Hnrnrnrghg.”

“She was like this when I found her.” Emily grimaced. “I would have brought her back but-“

“Just leave me be!” the girl in question hissed from her position, her eyes widening quickly and her body going rigid as she saw between the fringes of her hair that it was not just Miss. Quackfaster coming to bother her misery again. “Unc- Unnkle Schro-“ Her body contracted again, as the last drops of bile escaped her stomach. Scrooge stepped quickly up and gathered her hair in his hand, using the other rub his niece’s back. Nodding to his archivist, he quickly mouthed: “thank you, I’ll take it from here”, to her. She nodded back and left the uncle and niece alone.

“There there, lass. Had a bit too much aye. How did you even get in? I thought they didn’t let nineteen-years-olds in?”

Della slumped back and ended up leaning against her uncle’s legs who was standing behind her. Tilting her head back, she looked at her uncle. “You taught ush how to break into to pla-plash-plashes.”

Sighing and feeling like an idiot for not seeing this coming, Scrooge flushed the toilet and pushed his niece to sit against the cubicle wall. “I taught you how to excavate ancient temples full of death-traps, this is not how those skills should be deployed!”

Della made a pained noise and fell sideways until she was laying in fetal position on the floor. “I wanna death-trap.”

“Come now lass, let’s get you home.”

“No…I’m gonna die here.”

Trying to wrangle his niece up, Scrooge had to admit defeat, as her stomach started dry heaving again, and the teenager made more pained noises. Letting her curl on the floor, Scrooge himself settled to sit down opposite of her and mentally prepared for a long night. A gentle thrumming of bass and the blue light of the club-bathroom made everything feel slightly surreal.

“How much did ya drink?”

“Urgh.”

“More than Donald aye?”

“Urgh…He left. Whi’som cute boy...Dat bashrdard was fhiinee…almosh sober. sho happy. Sho popular. Phrobably getting laid with that cock.”  

 “He’s home and fine, I saw to that. Did ye drink any water at all tonight?”

“blergh.”

“Have I never taught ye how to drink smartly?” It seemed like he must have, but then again it looked to be that the answer was no. As a child of Glasgow’s East-End, he had subconsciously just assumed that people were born with the knowledge on how to handle alcohol. “Yer every third glass should be non-alcoholic, dehydration causes hangovers, eat a lot of proteins before drinking, also after drinking, proteins detox you. Don’t take shots in a row, it takes twenty minutes for the alcohol to kick in and ye won’t notice that ye over-drank.”

“great.”

“ye took shots in a row, didn’t yeh?”

“hngh.”

“Come now Della. Yer smarter than this. What happened?”

For a moment Scrooge was sure that Della had not heard the question, as she stayed silent for a long while, but before Scrooge could get up to check whether his niece had passed out, she groaned: “Fecking Shallyy….hates me. But sthat’s allrigh. She’s dumb anyway. I don’t care.”

“Who’s Sally?”

“No one.”

“You’re crying in a club bathroom because of a no one?”

“Am no crying.” Della sniffled, clearly crying. She had brought her hand over her head and was hiding her face, but the sobs were unmistakable. “An’ am not spoilhled shlut.”  

“Who called you a slut.” Scrooge’s voice went alarmingly steady.

“Shsally.”

“What exactly happened?”

Della’s eyes peeked from underneath her arm, as she seemed for the first time think that her uncle was sitting on the floor of The Office’s bathroom. “Yur in a gay bar.”

“Well spotted. Now what exactly happened that led you into this shape?”

“Do you feel weird.”

“Not at all, as I’m still perfectly sober, unlike some. Besides, I own this bar.”

“You do?”

“I own a lot of places.”

“Oh.”

“Della, what happened? Please. I’m worried.”

“I’ve been seeingh sthis girl for few monnsths nuw. Shally. Sh’s cute. An bravhe. We were gonna go explhore togethere. Saihd tha I wuz her uptown ghirl. We were gunna get Donnie laid. An we did I ghuess. Bu then there was Roger. Here.”

“Yer ex-boyfriend Roger?” Scrooge hazarded a guess. He remembered the timid boy that had lasted a month before proving too nervous to withstand the McDuck lifestyle. He and Della had broken things off amiably in the end.

“Ya. Shally shaid I was dis- disgest- disguuu- gross. I was gross. Because of dick. Tainted. Shaid I wus a shpoiled rich straight girl. That I hurt her.”   

Anger boils deep in Scrooge’s belly and there is moment when he thinks of pulling all the information that drunk Della would undoubtedly give on this Sally and then showing her what it is like when a trillionaire holds a grudge against you. He squashes it, knowing that it is a path he cannot take. For his family’s and his own sake.

“Ye did not hurt her. Ye didnae do anything wrong.”

“You dunno that.”

“Della. Do ye really think that what she said was fair?”

“No.” was Della’s small reply and Scrooge felt relieved.

 “There see. Ye happened to date a scabby bambot. That’s nae ye fault.”

Della had rolled over to her back, one hand still thrown over her face. “Room’s spinning…Do you think I’m wrong?”

“Of course not.”

“I shuld chuuse. Bois or gurls. I jus keep bhanging both. An I alwais leave. So selfish…Am not nice like Donnie. Or reshponshiblle like Donnie…Am a fuckup. I shuldn’t have yelled at Shally. Maybe she wuld hav staid…”

“Ach no!” Scrooge shuffled closer to his niece, until he could get a grip of her under her armpits and dragged her around. She was still in no shape to get on her feet, as even this amount of movement made her stomach clench and her throat gag in dry heaving motions. There was nothing in her to come up anymore, but the reflex was painful. So, they stayed on the floor, Della’s head resting on her uncle’s lap. Said uncle tried to rub lightly on her scalp, hoping to ease some of the discomfort. Muffled 80s pop songs could be heard through the walls.

“Don’t ye ever lay down for bullies like that. It’s not worth it. Ye won’t be able to please them and they just like the control.”

“I really liked her.” Della mumbled into his jacket.

“I know. I fancied a lad like that once too. Believe me, it is not worth it.”

George Mallardy’s handsome face popped into Scrooge’s mind and he shook his head a little to banish the memory. Mallardy had been so handsome it almost hurt, and charming enough to make anyone swoon. He had also been the first person in years Scrooge had met whose bravery and daring-do attitude had matched Scrooge’s own. He had been to places that Scrooge hadn’t and had had skills that Scrooge didn’t and Scrooge had fallen hard and fast.

In the whirlwind of it all, it hadn’t been until they were halfway up Mount Neverrest that the rose-tinted picture had cracked, and he had realised that Mallardy was a selfish, controlling, bastard who had never intended for them to become equal adventuring partners, but just wanted to feel good by having someone he could feel superior towards. Suddenly he had seen that the playful snipes weren’t so playful after all and that pretending to be younger and more helpless than he was, was simply stupid and just fed onto Mallardy’s ego. The funny friend and a generous lover had turned into spiteful control-freak and a selfish partner, who had cut Scrooge into what he had to assume would have been Scrooge’s certain death.

One day he would dance over his grave, if he ever were to find it.

 “you liked a boy?”

“I have fancied a boy and a girl now and then.”

“Both?”

“I didn’t know you had to choose these days.”

“Didan’t ya hav’ta choose those days?”

“Certainly, if you were aiming for marriage.”

“I tough I wuld hafta hide.”

“It seems to be a general trend in every decade.”

“So yur bi like me?”

“Whatever it is ye kids call it these days.”

“Yu don’t think am a slut?”

“So ye like to roll around a lot with both. I like very few of both. who cares! Some people think it is unnatural that I don’t have a mistress. Some people will think it is unnatural ye aren’t courting steady. Ye won’t win if ye play their rules. Tumble as many as ye want, just don’t hurt anyone. Including yerself.” Scrooge stressed the last part.

Della giggled drunkenly, and the sound made Scrooge feel warm and fluffy inside. “Thanks for coming for me.”

“I will always come and get ye, when ye do dumb decisions.”

Della giggled again, and the giggles made her feel ill again as she ended up groaning. “I’ll know better now.”

A small smile tugged at Scrooge’s beak. Some lessons had to be learned the hard way. “What’d you say lass. Can ye get up?”

“I’ll try.”

An arm wrapped around his niece’s waist, Scrooge hauled her up and after a moment of swaying, she seemed to find her feet. “Ye okay?”

“Fine.”

Arm locked over her uncle’s shoulder, Della managed to half walk, half be dragged outside. The stairs were a challenge but, soon they were in the open air, breathing in the crispy night-air. They were not the only pair leaving the place in less than dignified manner, and therefore were barely noticed between the more noticeable and flamboyant clientele.

Scrooge’s car was parked just one block away, and it was actually not his car. The unassuming Honda had been borrowed from his butler as taking the limo would have drawn too many stares on this time of the night.

So, Scrooge wrangled Della to sit on the shotgun seat and jumped behind the wheel. “Ye think ye can make it without puking?”

“There’s nothing left in me to puke.” Della mumbled and rested her forehead against the cool glass of the car.

“We’ll get ye in bed in no time. Ye will feel better in the morning- well in the afternoon.”

“Thanks uncle Scrooge. Yur the besht.” Della mumbled against the window.

“Anytime lass. Picking ye up when ye can’t make it is my job as yer uncle.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i] Nelson’s Monument is the most frequently appearing constant in the charges written down against homosexual conduct in Glasgow. Apparently, if you were looking for male company, the bushes around the monument were the place to be in the late 19th century and the early 20th century.
> 
> https://queerscotland.com/2013/08/08/mapping-glasgows-queer-history/
> 
> [ii] Miner’s Balls were a documented fact that happened in California Gold Rush. As women were scarce, balls would be held where half of the men assumed the role of a woman, signified by patches on their trousers.  
>          "The absence of ladies," Borthwick noted, "was a difficulty which was very easily overcome." All agreed that every man "who had a patch on a certain part of his inexpressibles" would be a woman for the night, indicating just how successfully Gold Rush demographics and contests for meaning had unsettled normative notions of gender.”
> 
> Because I wanted Scrooge and Migs to go on a date, I decided that the cowboys in Duckverse kept the tradition going.
> 
> [iii] Wilde trials, concerned with Oscar Wilde and his homosexual affairs, were quite the news, not only in Europe but in America too in 1895.
> 
> http://www.famous-trials.com/wilde/327-home
> 
> [iv]The Duckverse counterpart to Virginia Woolf, an early 20th century modernist writer and a known member of the LGBTQ community.
> 
> http://virginiawoolfblog.com/vanessa-bells-reaction-to-virginia-woolf-and-vita-sackville-wests-affair/
> 
> [v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
> 
> [vi] Rubber condom was already invented in the 19th century, but they were so expensive that general populace rarely could afford them. It could take a prostitute a month wages to buy a condom. It didn’t help that condoms were for the most of 19th century illegal, as they were seen to “support immorality”, so gentlemen would buy them in nondescript paper bags sold as gentlemen rubbers, or such secret names.  
> 
> https://daily.jstor.org/short-history-of-the-condom/
> 
> [vii] Hey, do yourself a favour and never put fourth stage syphilis into google image search. It is a disease that makes your face rot and fall of while you are still alive. It was also insanely common before penicillin was invented.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/17/syphilis-sex-fear-borgias


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